“There is no derangement of the digestive organs upon which the proper dose of Bell-ans (Pa-pay-ans, Bell) will not act quickly, pleasantly and favorably....”
There is no physician living who really believes such claims as these! Yet on the medical profession rests the responsibility for the exploitation of this nostrum. Those medical journals which accept advertisements for things of this kind are not so much to blame as those physicians who unprotestingly tolerate the journals that do so. Privately owned medical journals are published, usually, as a commercial proposition; they reflect, to a greater or less extent, the attitude of their readers, subscribers and contributors. There are at least three medical journals which carry the advertisements of Bell-ans. They are the New York Medical Journal, the International Journal of Surgery and the Massachusetts Medical Journal.
Bell-ans (Pa-pay-ans, Bell) possesses the virtues—and they are few—and the limitations—and these are many—inherent to a mixture of bicarbonate of soda, ginger and charcoal. Any druggist could put up just as good a remedy, and any physician could write a prescription for a better one in those cases in which he might think it indicated. The whole secret of the commercial success of Bell-ans lies in the mystery of its composition and the fraudulence of the claims that have been made for it. The same tablets put out under a non-proprietary name, as an open formula and with claims that were reasonable and true, would have had practically no sale. The commercial success of Bell-ans is a monument whose foundation rests equally on the unscrupulousness of the manufacturer and on the gullibility of a learned profession.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Jan. 16, 1915.)
BIOSOL
Dr. A. N. Lakin, State Line, Ind., writes:
“Kindly advise me concerning Biosol. I am sending you herewith a pamphlet describing this product. On the last page note clinical report from Dr. Buchman of the Indiana Medical Association and president of the Department of Public Health, Fort Wayne, Ind.”
H. Hille, once of Heidelberg, now of Oak Park, Ill., having reached the conclusion that mineral starvation is the cause of all diseases, devoted his talents to finding a remedy. He claims to have found it and calls it “Biosol.” He published his discovery in a pamphlet entitled “Facts of Modern Science,” and recently published an article in the Medical Record giving his ideas on this mineral point of view. Biosol is an indescribable mixture of alcohol, carbohydrates, and many and various mineral bodies—ranging all the way from sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium to silicon, copper, uranium and thorium—the amount of each being in most cases extremely minute. It is said to be a valuable food as well as medicine. A dose of this food might keep a rabbit alive for several hours, and a man who could stand the expense and escape death from delirium tremens might live on three quarts of the mixture per day. Human beings have little occasion to fear mineral starvation, and may obviate whatever danger there may be with a drink of milk. Like other living creatures, we may be thankful that we are furnished in our own bodies with a living bioplasm which can use the minerals of the waters and the rocks and which has its own laboratory in which to prepare organic compounds to suit its needs.—(From The Journal A. M. A., March 8, 1913.)