Reports of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The Council has authorized publication of the following reports on Peacock’s Bromides and Chionia, sold by the Peacock Chemical Company, St. Louis.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
PEACOCK’S BROMIDES
This is another nostrum of the ordinary mixture type. Of the various statements concerning composition furnished by the company, the following gives as much information as any:
“In Peacock’s Bromides it is designed to unite fifteen grains of the purest bromides of Potassium, Sodium, Ammonium, Calcium and Lithium, in such proportion as to insure the bromine equivalent of potassium bromide. Each fluid drachm about equals, in medicinal strength, fifteen grains of potassium bromide.”
The label on the trade package indicates the presence of 10 per cent. of alcohol. It will be observed that the proportions of the different bromids are not stated. Hence, the assertion of the Peacock Chemical Company that “there is nothing secret in this compound” cannot be true. A physician prescribing it cannot know how much of each ingredient he is giving; it may be 141⁄2 grains of potassium bromid and 1⁄8 grain each of sodium, ammonium, calcium and lithium bromid, or any other of an enormous number of possible permutations of the proportions.
While the theoretical basis of bromid medication is not yet fully settled, the weight of the best pharmacologic authority and clinical experience is decidedly against the dogmatic claim of the Peacock Chemical Company that “the best result is obtained by prescribing a combination of bromides.” And if there were any advantage in prescribing such a combination, the physician ought to regulate the proportions.
The following quotations are from the advertising matter:
“Being uniform in purity and therapeutic power, it can be relied upon to produce clinical results which it is believed cannot be obtained from the use of commercial bromide substitutes.”