Such are some of the claims by which Formamint goes to the European public. Doubtless it will be only a matter of time when the required number of testimonials from American physicians are forthcoming when we may expect to find the newspapers of this country heralding through their advertising pages the fact that Formamint is “recommended by thousands of American physicians.” The medical journals that are lending their pages to this preliminary advertising campaign are the following:
| New York Medical Journal | American Journal of Clinical Medicine |
| Medical Record | Medical Review of Reviews |
| American Medicine |
How much longer will the medical profession permit itself to be used as an unwitting agency for the exploitation of “patent medicines”? The game has been worked so often that it has become transparently thin. It is evidently not worn out, however, or shrewd nostrum promoters would not waste their time or money on it. That it should still be considered workable is complimentary neither to the standard of advertising ethics of medical journals that accept the Formamint advertisements nor to the intelligence of the members of the medical profession who will “fall for it.”—(The Journal A. M. A., Feb. 24, 1912.)
GOMENOL
A correspondent sends some advertising matter on Gomenol and calls attention to the number of diseases for which the preparation is recommended:
Gomenol is apparently a volatile oil. It is a proprietary said to come from France, and to be prepared from a species of cajuput (Melaleuca viridiflora, Gaertn.). This plant is closely related to the cajuput tree or swamp tea-tree (Melaleuca leucodendron, Linné) from which the official oil of cajuput is obtained. The oils from these two plants are very similar in composition and presumably in therapeutic properties. The oil of the first-named plant appears not to be marketed except in the form of the proprietary, Gomenol. It probably has no advantage over the official oil of cajuput, while in the form of Gomenol it costs about four times as much. The following are some of the claims made for Gomenol in the advertising circulars. They need no comment.
“A real specific for suppurations and catarrh.... It immunizes tissues, excites their vitality and favors the formation of new cells....
“The least trace of Gomenol prevents the growth in vitro of the streptococcus, the tuberculous bacillus and the gonococcus.”—(From The Journal A. M. A., April 4, 1914.)