GARDNER’S SYRUP OF HYDRIODIC ACID
Report to the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The following report on Gardner’s Syrup of Hydriodic Acid was submitted to the Council by a subcommittee:
This product was first taken under consideration in February, 1906. Reference to several committees was necessary, on account of the peculiar claims for the pharmaceutical, and especially the therapeutic, superiority of this preparation. At this time, as the Council did not have the necessary facilities for investigating therapeutic claims, the product was approved by the Council.
Since this time, however, the manufacturers have laid especial stress in their advertisements on some highly improbable claims, stating, for instance, that this Syrup of Hydriodic Acid possesses “all the advantages, with none of the objectionable symptoms caused by potassium iodid, or other forms of iodin medication.” To one with even an elementary knowledge of chemistry, the absurdity of this statement should be evident. The alkaline reaction of the tissues makes it impossible that hydriodic acid should persist as such in the body. In fact, the iodin must circulate in precisely the same form, whether administered originally as potassium iodid or as hydrogen iodid. The qualitative identity of the therapeutic actions is further proof of this fact, were such needed.
Since the most important objectionable symptoms of iodid medication arise after the absorption of the drugs, and since hydrogen iodid is conceded to be readily absorbed, it is evident that these symptoms must be equally liable to occur with hydrogen iodid as with potassium iodid, provided that equivalent doses of iodin are administered. An apparent difference in clinical results would arise if one drug were habitually given in smaller doses than the other. Since, however, the iodin is present in the body in precisely the same form, whether it is administered as a hydrogen iodid or potassium iodid, it is evident that a given degree of therapeutic effect would correspond to an identical tendency to iodism, whichever drug was used. If, as appears to be the case, the use of hydriodic acid is commonly restricted to those cases in which only minimal doses of iodin are required, the relative infrequency, or even absence of symptoms with such doses would not prove that the drug itself is less apt to cause them than is the potassium salt.
These facts are in reality self-evident; but since the Council now has proper facilities for obtaining the views and experiences of clinicians, it voted to submit the statement in question to its staff of clinical consultants, and to be guided by their advice.