ABSURD CLAIMS
It should be unnecessary, after pointing out the conflict between the name and the published formula, between the formula and the actual composition, and between the composition and all established therapy, to discuss this heterogeneous and unscientific mixture further. A few specimen absurdities, however, may be quoted from the advertising “literature”:
“... Free of the Disagreeable Effects of the Alkaline Iodides.”
[Tri-Iodides, according to the laboratory report, depends for its iodin action on potassium iodid.]
“... we have an assimilable form of vegetable hydriodates.
“The hydriodates of these valuable vegetable alkaloids afford the specific alterative action of iodine without such disagreeable results as the iodism produced by the ordinary iodides.”
[“The hydriodates” is an obsolete term formerly applied to iodids of vegetable alkaloids. Iodids of vegetable alkaloids, if present at all in Tri-Iodides, are present in negligible amounts.]
“Containing Iodine in an available form, it is obvious that the formula must be beneficial in the majority of syphilitic skin lesions.”
The falsity of the first two of these claims and the mischievousness of the last are self-evident.
It would be possible, but is unnecessary, to produce an almost unlimited amount of evidence to show the transparent character of the deception by which this preparation is exploited.