Of all the statements made in the circular perhaps the most remarkable, in that it is so dangerously misleading, is that regarding helenin, the active principle of elecampane. The statement that this principle (helenin) is destructive of tubercle bacilli in dilutions of 1-10,000 can only mean that it is of extraordinary value in the treatment of tuberculosis; in fact, it is definitely stated that the action of elecampane is similar to that of guaiacol and creosote.
It is obvious that any drug which would destroy the tubercle bacilli in the human lungs without exerting a toxic action on the patient would be a great contribution to medicine. But although elecampane may have been used for centuries it has proved to have little, if any, merit, and even the National Standard Dispensatory, p. 848, says: “Elecampane was formerly employed as a tonic, stimulant, diuretic, diaphoretic, expectorant, and emmenagogue, but has now largely fallen into disuse.” One looks in vain in the standard textbooks on therapeutics for a description of the uses of inula (or elecampane), and of its so-called “active principle,” helenin.
The circular to which reference has been made says, referring to the use of castanea and passiflora in the treatment of whooping cough:
“Gelsemium, when made from the fresh, green plant—as is Merrell’s—is an excellent adjuvant to the above drugs, and allays the nervous irritability so frequently present.”
H. C. Wood, Jr. (Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 1916, p. 160), says of gelsemium: “Gelsemium was originally employed as an arterial sedative and febrifuge in the malarial fevers of the South, and subsequently in sthenic fevers. It appears in some way to depress the bodily temperature, but it does not appear probable that any advantage to be derived from it will counterbalance the danger attending its employment in the large doses required. In asthma, spasmodic laryngitis, whooping cough, and nervous cough it has been recommended by Bartholow, but is little used.”
That is about as favorable a statement for the drug as is to be found in the textbooks, and it serves to illustrate how little new there is in this mixture of obsolete drugs that Merrell seeks to market as one possessing extraordinary therapeutic value.
Even though the ingredients, or certain of them, were singly useful in the treatment of those conditions for which Casta-Flora is recommended, no one could possibly foresee the effect in any given case of such a jumble of drugs, both active and inert, as is said to be represented in this preparation. The prescribing of such mixtures, the action of which cannot in any way be foreseen, is plain charlatanism.
In addition, the various drugs in Casta-Flora are present in such proportions that the dose of each of the several ingredients bears no relation to the commonly accepted dose.
Casta-Flora is not acceptable for New and Nonofficial Remedies.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Jan. 27, 1917.)