1. Severe, 13; mild, 14; none, 4; unrecorded, 8 = 39
2. Severe, 5; mild, 15; none, 16; unrecorded, 5 = 41
3. Severe, 7; mild, 25; none, 3; unrecorded, 2 = 37
That is, when recorded in percentages:
1. (Biniodol) severe, 33.3; mild, 35.9; none, 10.3; unrecorded, 20.5.
2. (Without guaiacol) severe, 12.2; mild, 36.8; none, 39.0; unrecorded, 12.2.
3. (With guaiacol) severe, 18.9; mild, 67.5; none, 8.1; unrecorded, 5.5.
The manufacturer of Biniodol supplied the names of several physicians who have used that preparation in their practice. Correspondence with these elicited the following statements:
One had used Biniodol in forty-eight cases and states that “only a few patients complain of pain at all and then only of a general soreness in the muscle.” This physician reports a limited experience with the use of another manufacturer’s “mercury biniodide oil solution” (apparently six cases), but severe pain following the injections made it necessary to abandon that preparation.
Another of these physicians named by the manufacturer, without reference to any series of cases, reports that “Biniodol is superior to any [oily solution of mercury biniodid] that I have tried.”
A third physician has “used it [Biniodol] a few times” and is “convinced that it has no special action or virtue” over “any red mercuric iodide in oil.”
This evidence, in its most favorable estimate, shows Biniodol to be a good 1 per cent. solution of mercuric iodid in oil, but fails to justify attributing to the preparation any unique characteristics. The preparations made in the laboratory were as satisfactory, or better than the Biniodol, and the presence or absence of the guaiacol was of no consequence.
Biniodol conflicts with Rule 6, since claims of superior therapeutic efficiency made for it are not established; and with Rules 8 and 10, since it is an unessential modification of an established nonproprietary article marketed under a proprietary name.