The journals of which we have record that carry the enteronol advertisement are: Kansas City Medical Record, Milwaukee Medical Journal, Toledo Medical and Surgical Reporter, Proctologist, Pediatrics, and the Atlanta Journal-Record of Medicine. If the statements made by the Enteronol Co. are true, we might infer that these journals are being paid for advertising space either with “preferred stock” or with the nostrum itself. As we have previously shown, however, the veracity of the enteronol advertising matter is by no means unimpeachable.
Enteronol, it will be remembered, was exposed in The Journal, March 21, 1908. It is advertised as the “greatest antiseptic and germicide known to science,” and possesses (?) such remarkable power that it “destroys the germs of typhoid fever, acute and chronic diarrhea, dysentery, cholera infantum, cholera morbus, summer complaint, Asiatic cholera, etc., within two hours.” “The original product is found only high up on the sides of the loftiest mountains in the world—the Himalayas of India.”
THE “LITERATURE” FORMULA
Of course, it has a “formula”:
| Ipecac | Lupulin | |
| Sub. nit bismuth | Latalia rad. | Caffein |
| Camphor | Rheum |
This seems very open and above board, except as to quantities, until one tries to find out what “latalia rad.” is; then it is discovered that it is the “mysterious stranger” of pharmacognosy. Experts to whom this “remedy” was submitted were unable even to find mention of such a drug or plant as “latalia rad.” Nor was this the only fake found concerning the stuff; carefully conducted experiments repeatedly carried out in the Association’s laboratory failed to disclose even a trace of bismuth subnitrate or caffein. These experiments did show, however, that the tablets contained an amount of aluminum corresponding to over 25 per cent. of crystallized alum. This led to the conclusion that alum, whose presence is not even hinted at in the “formula,” is the chief constituent of enteronol and as a corollary that the formula is meaningless and worthless.
THE LABEL FORMULA
There is a curious lack of coordination between the “formula” as printed on the label and that given in the “literature.” The Food and Drugs Act, it will be remembered, makes lying on the label illegal, and therefore dangerous; statements in advertising matter that does not accompany the product, however, are not controlled by that law. The “formula” in the “literature” we have already given; the “formula” on the label gives the following ingredients:
| Ipecac | Lupulin | |
| Sub. nit. bismuth | Opium, 1⁄4 gr. | Caffein |
| Camphor | Rheum |
Two things about this are worth noting: One is that the name of the ingredient on which the manufacturer lays so much stress—latalia rad., the mysterious Himalayan plant—is absent from the label. This would seem to indicate that what has already been intimated by The Journal—namely, that latalia rad. is a figment of the imagination—is a fact. The second noticeable thing about the label “formula,” as distinct from the “formula” in the advertising matter, is that on the label we find there is opium in the preparation. Why is no mention made of the presence of this potent drug in the advertising matter?