“By the way, I am to-day sending you by mail a package which the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry may care to tackle, or it may not. I shall not be insulted any way, but since these chologen preparations are being used a good deal by various globe trotters, who sometimes hook up for a short stay here, I feel it might be of some interest to know ‘what fools these mortals be’ and how much the profession is being fooled with them.”
Chologen as a medical treatment for gall-stones has been before the German public for a number of years, and it is somewhat singular that so simple a method, which could be easily prescribed by the physician if it had merit, should exhibit such remarkable vitality in proprietary form in spite of evidence going to show that it rests on erroneous principles. The Council rejected it as an unscientific mixture. The treatment is somewhat liberal, consisting of the use, in varying successions, of three kinds of tablets: No. 1, calomel and podophyllin; No. 2, calomel, and No. 3, calomel, podophyllin, camphor and menthol. The proprietors tell us that the treatment should be proceeded with in spite of disturbances, such as diarrhea and pain in the abdomen, and that it should be repeated regularly in intervals for some years, so long as any trouble exists or recurrence is threatened. “A course” of Chologen tablets should be taken two or three times a year, No. 1 being given for ten days, then Nos. 1 and 2 for forty days and No. 3 for ten days.
It is worthy of note that experimental work seems to have been performed in the attempt to show that bile produced by this remedy will cause the disintegration and solution of gall-stones. Normal bile has a certain solvent action on gall-stones, but calomel and podophyllin have no demonstrable effect in increasing the amount of bile. We had imagined that these facts were generally known.
It is somewhat discouraging to reflect that some physicians entertain so low an estimate of their ability to prescribe such well-known remedies as calomel and podophyllin that they must use them in the fixed combinations provided by Dr. Glaser. If the self-respecting physician does not consider himself insulted by a proprietary manufacturer who presumes to tell him how to use such well-known remedies, this is a good sign that he needs to take a postgraduate course in materia medica and elementary prescription-writing. We feel that medical writers must be short of subjects when they devote papers to the exploitation of proprietaries consisting of these simple ingredients.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Feb. 1, 1913.)
HAGEE’S CORDIAL OF COD-LIVER OIL [AJ]
Fraud and Deception Connected with So-Called Cod-Liver Oil Preparations
The introduction of cod-liver oil as a supposedly easily assimilable nutrient and reconstructive was followed by its extensive use in wasting diseases, especially in phthisis, in the treatment of which it came to be considered almost essential, as it was supposed to possess some mysterious power different from that of other oils. Its unpalatable character led to various devices to render it tasteless and make it more acceptable to the stomach. Emulsions containing the oil in mixture with other substances were put on the market and served a useful purpose. But the oily nature, imperfectly concealed, was disagreeable to many, and gradually other preparations appeared which attempted to retain the supposed therapeutic virtues of cod-liver oil while dispensing with its disagreeable character. This attempt has been carried to the extreme that in many of the cod-liver oil preparations now on the market the oil has been entirely eliminated and all that is left of the oil is the name. This is a species of fraud which has been tolerated too long, but which will be kept up so long as physicians are willing to be duped. Some of these articles are said to “represent” the oil and to possess all its virtues. Others are said to contain oil, while still others are stated to contain “all the valuable constituents.” What is the standard by which we may determine the true value of these preparations and by which we may determine whether or not we, and through us our patients, are being humbugged?