Robinol
John Wyeth and Brother put up a mixture of glycerophosphates which they call Robinol. In their description of the properties of this mixture they say:
“Phosphorus exists in the brain, nervous system, and vital organs as lecithin, of which glycerophosphoric acid is the most important constituent and is essential to the vital processes for the reproduction of life and maintenance of metabolism in old age, impotence, etc.”
The first impression on reading this sentence is that it suggests that glycerophosphates are essential to the vital processes, although the statement strictly applies to phosphorus. The next sentence confirms this impression and the mind glissades from the accepted fact of the existence of phosphorus in nervous tissue to the unfounded hypothesis that the glycerophosphates are necessary to supply the essential element. In the next sentence the circular continues:
“In nervous and general debility the glycerophosphates as exhibited in Robinol, are preferable to the mineral phosphates as they contribute the essential constituent of nerve tissue and are absorbed by the cells more readily than any phosphate of vegetable or inorganic origin.”
This statement is utterly unfounded. It is in direct opposition to the conclusions of pharmacologists. The glycerophosphoric acid radical is, to be sure, found in the lecithin of nervous tissues, but its source is not known. There is no evidence either that it must be present in the food or that it must be taken as medicine in order that the brain and nervous tissues shall be nourished. When the glycerophosphates are taken there is no evidence that they enter into the composition of the brain or nervous tissue. They are excreted in the urine and feces as phosphates. It has never been shown that glycerophosphates are absorbed any more readily than other phosphates.
But the advertising circular has still more information to impart to physicians:
“In that group of maladies characterized by faulty nutrition, due to the excessive elimination of phosphorus from the body, as is evidenced by the fatigue and weakness following acute attacks and present in many chronic affections, during the course of fevers and in the later stages of phthisis and all diseases of the nervous system, physicians will find the tonic chalybeate properties of the glycerophosphates of great value.”
Physicians know, if the nostrum makers do not, how difficult it is to determine whether there is an excessive elimination of phosphorus from the body. The bulk of the phosphates found in the urine are derived from the food and so little comes from the metabolism of the nervous system that it is not easy to prove that any disease is due to excessive elimination of phosphorus from the body. That fatigue and weakness are due to such a loss of phosphorus is mere assumption, a convenient theory for the exploiters of glycerophosphates. But admitting that nervous waste or faulty nutrition is characterized by the loss of phosphorus, it is easier, cheaper and more rational to supply such loss by the use of phosphorus-containing foods, such as milk and eggs, and there is not the slightest evidence that the loss of phosphorus will be influenced in any way by giving a supply in the form of glycerophosphates. Thus, in order to bolster up the sale of a simple solution of glycerophosphates, vague theories and improbable hypotheses are dressed in all the dignity of scientific facts.