As to the other alleged ingredients of Hormotone—hormones of the ovary and testes, amounts not stated: all physicians know the uncertainties attending the use of ovarian preparations and the serious question as to whether testicular extracts have any therapeutic value. Whatever may be the physicians views as to the probable therapeutic value of these organs, the first thing he desires to know is how much of the substance he is giving and from what part of the gland it is obtained.
So much for the facts; yet the physician is asked to jump from this region of solid fact into a sea of hypothesis; to believe that small amounts of the well-known drugs thyroid and pituitary, plus an unknown amount of unknown hormones of the testes and ovary are of great value in conditions that in themselves are often purely hypothetical. He is asked to believe that this combination has virtues in such conditions as “hypofunction of the adrenal system,” neurasthenia, the “fatigue syndrome,” amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, “natural and artificial menopause,” sexual neuroses, cold extremities, cardiac asthenia, low blood pressure, infantilism, sterility, melancholic conditions, obesity, anorexia, anemia, slow metabolism, constipation, psychasthenia, lowered virility and the sexual neuroses of the unmarried, hysteria following functional exhaustion of the nerve centers, frigidity, etc., etc., especially if he guesses that the trouble is due to a “pluriglandular disturbance,” “glandular hypofunction,” an “adreno-pituitary deficiency,” suboxidation, etc.
The physician is invited to use Hormotone because, among other reasons, each alleged constituent is said to be “in physiologic sympathy and therapeutic harmony with the others,” and further, because:
“Pluriglandular therapy has the endorsement of high authorities, is both logical and effective and Hormotone is a splendid example of it. It will be seen at its best where the patient lacks snap and vim and vigor. Asthenic conditions necessarily indicate hypofunction of the adrenal system ...” etc.
“The use of gland extracts in the treatment of aplasias of the pluriglandular system has become an established therapeutic measure of miraculous potency (Bayard Holmes: The Internal Secretory Glands, Lancet-Clinic, Sept. 19, 1914).”
The G. W. Carnrick Company also advertises a “Hormotone Without Post-Pituitary,” each tablet of which is said to contain 1⁄10 grain desiccated thyroid, and to “present” “hormone bearing extracts of thyroid, anterior pituitary, ovary, and testes.” This product is just as irrational as “Hormotone.”—(From The Journal A. M. A., Aug. 16, 1919)
FORMALDEHYDE LOZENGES
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The Council has voted Hex-Iodin (Daggett and Miller Co., Inc., Providence, R. I.), Formitol Tablets (E. L. Patch Co., Boston), and Cin-U-Form Lozenges (McKesson and Robbins, New York City) inadmissible to New and Nonofficial Remedies, and authorized publication of the report which appears below.