A number of drugs have in some way obtained a reputation as being valuable in the treatment of diseases of women, without their therapeutic claims ever having been proved. It is said that some were used by the aborigines for such affections and we find a considerable number of them combined in various nostrums (sometimes with therapeutically active drugs) and exploited for the cure of female disorders, under most extravagant and usually absurd claims. Thus “Pierce’s Favorite Prescription” is advertised as containing black cohosh, blue cohosh, goldenseal, lady’s-slipper and false unicorn-root; “Dioviburnia” (Dios Chemical Co.) as containing American skullcap, cramp-bark, wild yam, blue cohosh, black haw, star-grass, trailing arbutus and false unicorn-root; “Viburnumal” (Louisville Pharmacal Works) as containing American skullcap, cramp-bark, wild yam, star-grass and motherwort.
Most pharmaceutical houses, following the lead of nostrum-makers, put similar mixtures on the market; for example: “Elixir of Viburnum Compound” (Nelson, Baker & Co.) is said to contain cramp-bark, American skullcap and wild yam; “Elixir of Hydrastis and Viburnum Compound” (Smith, Kline & French Co.), cramp-bark, goldenseal, Jamaica dogwood and pulsatilla; “Elixir of Hydrastis and Cramp Bark Compound” (Parke, Davis & Co.), cramp-bark, hydrastis, Jamaica dogwood and pulsatilla; “Fluid Extract of Cramp Bark Compound” (H. K. Mulford Co.), American skullcap, cramp-bark and wild yam; “Mother’s Cordial” (Eli Lilly & Co.), cramp-bark, blue cohosh, false unicorn and squaw vine; “Uterine Sedative Elixir” (Eli Lilly & Co.), cramp-bark, goldenseal, Jamaica dogwood and pulsatilla; “Vibutero” (Fred. Stearns & Co.), cramp-bark, wild yam, black haw, squaw vine, Jamaica dogwood, saw palmetto and pulsatilla. Practically all of these drugs except goldenseal are ignored in the standard works on pharmacology. Further, the results of careful examination by the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the therapeutic claims made for most of them shows that these claims are not sustained by reliable clinical experience.
The fact is that the popularity of preparations of this kind is purely an artificially created one. A nostrum containing, let us say, extractives of some little-used or worthless drugs is put on the market and heavily advertised. Should it be advertised in a manner to make it sell, a host of imitations appear and the large pharmaceutical houses put out substitutes for it. The uncritical physician does the rest. He prescribes it indiscriminately in the class of cases for which it is advertised. Naturally, a certain proportion of the patients who take it recover, and the recoveries are credited to the nostrum. A vicious circle is thus established and the demand for the stuff increases. Its sale, together with the sale of similar products, continues until the overwhelming experience of those who have prescribed it proves its uselessness. In the meantime the manufacturers have reaped a harvest, at the expense both of the public and of the medical profession. And the manufacturers’ excuse for putting such absurd “specialties” on the market is that physicians prescribe them!—(From The Journal A. M. A., Aug. 31, 1912.)
WHEELER’S NERVE VITALIZER
Names of nostrums often mislead by the use of fake nomenclature giving erroneous ideas regarding the composition of the preparation or misrepresenting the true action of the nostrum. As an example of the latter class Wheeler’s Nerve Vitalizer was examined in the Association laboratory and found to be not a vitalizer, as the name implies, but rather a nerve sedative. The results of the examination follow:
Wheeler’s Nerve Vitalizer was packed in a carton bearing the name of the preparation, its manufacturers, “The J. W. Brant Co., Ltd., Albion, Mich.,” and an exhaustive list of the diseases for which the product is intended, besides the general statement that it is a cure for “all nervous diseases.” The “Vitalizer” is a brown, syrupy liquid having a peculiar salty taste partially masked by licorice. Qualitative tests showed the presence of sodium, potassium and bromin, and no other acid radicals except small quantities of chlorin. It was decided therefore that the preparation contained a mixture of sodium and potassium bromids. In order to separate the chlorin and bromin the preparation was evaporated, charred, extracted with water and acetic acid and potassium permanganate added and the mixture distilled with steam until all the bromin had been distilled over, thus leaving the chlorin in the distilling flask. The solution in the distilling flask was then treated with silver nitrate and the chlorin estimated in the usual way. The quantity thus obtained was subtracted from the total silver bromid and chlorin obtained by precipitating a solution of the preparation with silver nitrate and the remainder calculated to bromin.
By this method several samples of 5 c.c. each of the preparation yielded an average of 0.0059 cm. silver chlorid or 0.0012 gm. per c.c. The total silver haloids obtained by direct precipitation of the diluted preparation was found to be 0.3158 gm. per c.c., thus leaving 0.3146 gm. silver bromid to be calculated to bromin.
The total sodium and potassium was obtained in the usual way and the potassium determined as the chlor-platinate and the sodium calculated from the difference. By this method the quantity of sodium found calculated to sodium bromid gave the following results: (a) 0.0629 gm. and (b) 0.0632 gm., or an average of 0.063 gm. per c.c. From the potassium estimations the following were calculated: (a) 0.1264 gm. potassium bromid and (b) 0.1259 gm. potassium bromid per c.c., an average of 0.1261 gm. potassium bromid per c.c.