These claims are not only absurd but also harmful; they tend to perpetuate a hypochondriacal state of mind in the class of patients appealed to—​the sexual neurasthenic. There is, however, a more serious side; the tendency of certain other claims made for the preparation are vicious and dangerous as well as misleading. The advertising claims are likely to induce some physicians—​those who accept advertising “literature” as dependable—​to belittle the importance of serious diseases of the sexual organs and to be content with Sanmetto, which, even if it gave as good results as other balsamic remedies, would be, at best, only a halfway measure. This in an advertising pamphlet physicians are given this advice as to the treatment of gonorrhea.

“To provide the needed rest the patient should be instructed to simply keep the parts clean with warm water for the first week and let the discharge continue until you can control it by internal medication. I wish to emphasize the fact that there is no way that any acutely inflamed portion of the genito-urinary tract can get the rest required so completely as by administration of Sanmetto.... After the acute gonorrhea has begun to subside the Sanmetto should be aided by mild astringent injections.”

If there is any well-established fact in medicine, it is that gonorrhea is a serious disease—​serious alike to the sufferer and to the community—​and one which needs careful attention from the very first. To claim, either directly or by implication, that it can be cured by such a mixture designed to act on the kidneys, bladder and nervous system is false and dangerous doctrine.

The physician who prescribes Sanmetto prescribes a secret medicine for conditions which he is presumably competent to treat with simple remedies of which he knows the origin and action and which he can vary to suit the needs of the individual.

Sanmetto is a secret nostrum the exploitation of which is an invitation to haphazard, uncritical therapy and a menace to public health.​—(From The Journal A. M. A., March 13, 1915.)

SECRETOGEN

Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry

The Council has authorized publication of the following report dealing with two internal secretion specialties—​Secretogen Elixir and Secretogen Tablets—​to call attention to the unfounded and extravagant claims made for this class of products.

W. A. Puckner, Secretary.