The Council adopted the following report and authorized its publication.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
Gray’s Glycerine Tonic Comp. (Purdue Frederick Company, New York) is a mixture said to be made according to a prescription of the late Dr. John P. Gray, superintendent of the state hospital, Utica, New York. As to the composition, the following statement is furnished by the company:
“This preparation is a combination of Glycerine, Sherry Wine, Gentian, Taraxacum and Phosphoric Acid with carminatives.”
The label declares the presence of 11 per cent. alcohol, and the dose is given at from two teaspoonfuls to a tablespoonful. A study of the ingredients will show that, aside from the alcohol, the mixture contains but one really active drug, gentian. Essentially, then, “Gray’s Glycerine Tonic” is a mixture which, in addition to the narcotic effect of the alcohol, depends on a bitter, gentian, for whatever therapeutic action it may possess.
The bitters, of which gentian is a type, were once credited with many therapeutic virtues which time has shown they do not possess. Pharmacologic research has demonstrated that their utility consists in stimulating the appetite through their action on the taste buds. On this account they were believed also to increase the secretion of the gastric juice by a psychic impression. More recently, however, even this has been questioned—by Carlson, for instance.
These facts are fully understood, presumably, by all physicians. Yet, according to the advertising circular, this “tonic,” which, for all practical purposes, is merely a simple bitter, is good for thirty-two diseases ranging from amenorrhea to whooping cough!
The conditions in which Gray’s Glycerine Tonic is asserted to be especially efficient are described on the label of the bottle and the outside wrapper, in popular terms, more or less typical of “patent medicine” exploitation, such as “catarrhal conditions,” and “stomach derangements.” Similar statements are contained in the leaflet accompanying the trade package. For instance:
“It is, therefore, an effective, reliable tonic in nervous exhaustion, general debility, impoverished conditions of the blood and nervous system, Bright’s disease, diseases of the liver, disorders of the urinary organs, etc.”