Nor is even the Asiatic neglected in the Sanatogen advertising campaign. Here is reproduced an advertisement appearing in an Asian sporting newspaper published in India. The original advertisement was 10 inches by 15 inches.
Among the members of the Award Jury whose names were given by this drug journal were three men of prominence in Great Britain, to whom we have written. A reply has been received from one, Dr. Stephen Paget, who says: “I was not on the jury, nor do I know anything about the matter.... I had nothing whatever to do with the awarding of prizes.”—(From The Journal A. M. A., Oct. 11, 1913.)
A Restatement of the Case
The case against Sanatogen has been pretty plainly given at different times in The Journal, but the sale of the stuff goes on—thanks to the power of advertising. One criticism that has been made of this patent medicine is the exorbitant price charged for it. This objection, although but an incidental one, is the one that apparently appeals to the layman more strongly than the much more serious criticism, fraud in exploitation. You arrest the attention of the average man when you appeal to his purse; he resents paying an exorbitant price for anything. This probably accounts for the fact that this particular criticism has apparently hurt the sale of Sanatogen to a greater degree than the more serious objections made to the preparation. This also accounts, doubtless, for the fact that the attempts to answer The Journal criticisms, by those who are selling Sanatogen, have been largely devoted to the one point—its outrageously high price.
The fundamental objection to Sanatogen is not its high price, but the attempt to ascribe to a mixture of casein and glycerophosphates powers not possessed by these ingredients—in other words, the misleading and fraudulent claims made for it. Even if it were sold at cost price, the stuff, as at present advertised, would still be a fraud. The nub of the whole matter is: The claims made for Sanatogen are unwarranted, misleading and fraudulent.
SOME FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
The constituents of Sanatogen are casein and sodium glycerophosphate. These two very ordinary substances possess, so the Sanatogen people would have us believe, peculiar properties when they are brought together in chemical combination. Sanatogen, they claim, is a chemical combination of these constituents. The claim may be a good “selling-point,” but it cannot be, and is not, seriously taken by chemists. But even supposing, for the sake of argument, that sodium glycerophosphate and casein could be combined, there is not a scintilla of evidence to show that such a combination could survive the destructive influence of digestion and be absorbed. Whether Sanatogen is a chemical combination of casein and sodium glycerophosphate or a mere mechanical mixture of these two substances is really immaterial. In either case, it would be separated into its constituent parts by the digestive juices and would have the properties of sodium glycerophosphate and casein, and nothing more.
Remembering this, let us examine once more some of the claims made for this patent medicine:
“Sanatogen is a nerve and tissue food for which the brain, spinal cord and the nerves have a special predilection.”