| Barium Sulphid | 2 drams |
| Zinc oxid | 3 drams |
| Starch | 3 drams |
Permanganates and sulphids mutually destroy each other, and therefore the addition of the small amount of potassium permanganate cannot serve any useful purpose. The amounts of phenol, menthol and “Lilac or Citronel oil” are too small to exercise any effect (other than that of a flavor) and must be considered unessential additions.
2. Foral is a pharmaceutical mixture marketed under a non-informing name.
Whereas it is in the interest of rational medicine that physicians should know the composition of the preparations which they use, the name of this pharmaceutical mixture fails to indicate that it contains the well-known and by no means always harmless barium sulphid.
3. Foral is sold under exaggerated and unwarranted claims.
In view of the small amount of phenol present and the method of using the preparation, the claim that the use of Foral which, when operating on open wounds, “guarantees against any infection,” is evidently unwarranted.
There is no evidence for the claim that the use of depilatories such as Foral retards the growth of hair or renders hair less coarse. On the contrary, the commonly prevailing opinion is that depilation, like shaving, makes the hair coarser.
To determine if “one and all” of those who had used Foral were still using the preparation, four of the testimonials, appearing in an advertising pamphlet, were investigated. The pharmacist of the hospital from which the first of these testimonials was stated to have emanated replied that the person whose name appeared in connection with it had left the hospital about ten years ago and that no depilatory preparation has been used in this hospital for some time. So far as he knew, depilatories were not now in use in the surgical wards of the hospital. In regard to the second testimonial, the pharmacist of this hospital wrote that the hospital had not bought the preparation, but that some of it had been obtained for an elderly deaconness, who had personal use for a depilatory. The physician signing the third testimonial replied that the preparation was effectual for the removal of hair from the scalp, but that “... we have gotten out of the habit of using it.” In the case of the fourth testimonial, its asserted author wrote “... if it is applied in too large a quantity or too concentrated, or permitted to remain on too long, it will vesicate. It was for this reason chiefly that I discontinued its use. It is a very bad smelling mixture and patients complain of it very bitterly.”—(From Reports of Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry, 1918, p. 55.)