Burnham’s Soluble Iodin, according to the manufacturers, is one of the most noteworthy “discoveries” of the age. The advertisements aim to create an impression that while the product contains iodin, pure and simple, yet by some secret process this element has been so changed as no longer to possess its usual properties. The Burnham Soluble Iodin Company makes such extravagant claims for its product and gives such wide publicity to these claims that it seemed advisable, in the interests of the profession, to determine the nature of the preparation. Its examination was accordingly taken up in the laboratory of the American Medical Association.
From the analysis, we conclude that Burnham’s Soluble Iodin is a solution of iodin in alcohol made miscible with water by the presence of some iodid. Wilbert[94] and other investigators have arrived at practically the same conclusion.
Whatever the secret process, hinted at in the advertisements, by which this preparation is evolved, the fact remains that when one prescribes Burnham’s Soluble Iodin, one is prescribing iodin, together with an iodid, the nature of which is hard to determine. The iodid is not present as potassium iodid, nor, entirely, at least, as hydrogen iodid (hydriodic acid), but this is of slight importance compared with the fact that it is a solution in alcohol of free iodin and an iodid, and therefore is essentially the same as Lugol’s solution.
The amount of iodin found corresponds approximately to 3 gm. of free iodin and 2 gm. of combined iodin in 100 c.c. of the solution. Lugol’s solution contains 5 gm. free iodin, and 10 gm. potassium iodid in 100 c.c.
BURNHAM’S SOLUBLE IODIN TABLETS
Burnham’s Soluble Iodin Tablets are light brown compressed tablets, stamped with the letters B. S. I. in monogram. Each tablet is said to contain 3 minims Burnham’s Soluble Iodin.
The average weight of each tablet was found to be 0.3526 gm.; since Burnham’s Soluble Iodin was found to have a specific gravity of .8527 and to contain 4.5 per cent. total iodin, the tablets should contain approximately 2.3 per cent. total iodin, about one-half to two-thirds of which, depending on the condition of the “Soluble Iodin” from which they are made, should be free iodin. Instead of this, only 0.317 per cent. free iodin and 1.57 per cent. total iodin was found. Analysis shows that Burnham’s Soluble Iodin tablets contain approximately one-fourth the amount of free iodin and approximately two-thirds the amount of total iodin which should be contained therein if, in accordance with the label, each tablet contains 3 minims of Burnham’s Soluble Iodin.
COMMENT
The literature put out by the Burnham Soluble Iodin Company is in itself enough to condemn the products it advertises. The much emphasized statement of the company that
“Something had to be done; and Burnham’s Soluble Iodin is that which has been done”