[Editorial Note.—When the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry was started we announced that we did not see any clear line of demarcation between “patent medicines” and many so-called “ethical proprietaries.” Time has not caused us to change our opinion. As we have already shown, and as we shall have occasion to show in the future, not a few of the “ethical proprietaries” offered to physicians are being advertised by those who are pushing the rankest of “patent medicines.” The three preparations mentioned above are sold—and presumably manufactured—by Mr. Ballard, of St. Louis. Mr. Ballard is the promoter of Ballard’s Snow Liniment, Brown’s Iron Bitters, Herbine, Dr. Herrick’s Vegetable Liver Pills, Swaim’s Panacea, Renne’s Pain Killing Oil, etc. He is also the promoter of Campho-Phenique, exposed in The Journal some eight years ago.[89] The spectacle is not an edifying one. A manufacturer with one hand offers the public a profusion of cure-alls, while with the other he endeavors to foist on the medical profession preparations which are just as fraudulent. Some day our profession will awake to the disgrace of it all. It will also awake to the fact, which should have been evident ere this, that the nostrum business would cease if physicians would refuse to accept into their offices, even as a gift, the nostrum-promoting medical journals that live off this trade. Fraudulent “patent medicines” will continue to thrive just so long as newspapers will publish “patent medicine” advertisements; fraudulent “ethical proprietaries” will continue to exist just so long as medical journals will advertise such proprietaries. As the better class of newspapers are rejecting “patent medicine” advertising on their own volition, so are the better class of medical journals rejecting advertisements of fraudulent proprietaries. Some newspapers will continue to carry nostrum advertising until their subscribers raise a protest that will cause the business department to take notice; so, too, some medical journals will continue to share the profits with the nostrum exploiters until an outraged medical profession repudiates such publications.]—(From The Journal A. M. A., Feb. 6, 1915.)
THIALION
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The following report was submitted to the Council by a subcommittee which examined Thialion (Vass Chemical Company):
To the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry:—We beg leave to report on Thialion as follows:
Thialion is sold by the Vass Chemical Co., Danbury, Conn. In the literature supplied to physicians and in the advertisements in medical journals, Thialion is stated to be “a laxative salt of lithia” with the chemical formula “3Li2O.NaO.SO3.7HO.” “Sodio-trilithic anhydrosulphate” is given as a synonym. An elaborate graphic or structural formula is also given.
According to analyses, this preparation is a mixture consisting chiefly of sodium sulphate and sodium citrate with very small amounts of lithium, the average of several estimations indicating the following composition:
| Sodium citrate | 58.6 |
| Sodium sulphate, anhydrous | 26.6 |
| Sodium chlorid | 3.3 |
| Lithium citrate, anhydrous | 1.8 |
| Water | 9.7 |
Thus, the advertising literature is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. It is, therefore, recommended that the preparation be refused recognition, and that this report be published.