“... gives you first, last and all the time a fixed degree of dry usable heat—a heat that holds steadily at 125 degrees for fully twelve hours—you will easily see why it is that ‘THERMOR’ relieves and cures where hot-water bottles fail.”
The bottle was nickel plated, 83⁄8 inches in diameter and 11⁄2 inches thick, and in appearance resembled an exaggerated closed Ingersoll watch.
The bottle is not flexible and weighs 31⁄2 pounds. The contents consisted essentially of sodium acetate. This salt melts when heated. When it cools the temperature inside the bottle is relatively constant, as it will remain at the “freezing point” until all of the sodium acetate has solidified. The duration of the time that it remains warm when well wrapped is simply in inverse proportion to the conductivity of the surrounding environment. When two ordinary towels were carefully arranged about it, the air between the bottle and the wrappings was maintained at a temperature of 40–50 C. (104–122 F.) for a period of eight hours.
The company’s implication that the heat given out by the Thermor bottle differs from that given out by an ordinary hot-water bottle is an absurdity. The use of sodium acetate in the preparation of warming bottles has been in practice many years, and is not “a principle that is entirely different and new.” Furthermore, the therapeutic claims are extravagant.—(From Reports A. M. A. Chemical Laboratory, 1916, p. 105.)
ANTI-SYPHILITIC COMPOUND (SWEENY)
A specimen of Anti-Syphilitic Compound (Sweeny), sold by The National Laboratories of Pittsburgh, was received from a physician. The package (1 ounce size) has been opened by the sender and about three fourths of the contents removed.
From the rather indefinite statements in the literature of the manufacturer it is gathered that the preparation is claimed to be a “sterile, oily emulsion” which contains 1⁄20 grain of mercuric benzoate in each 5 minims, together with some sodium chlorid. According to information furnished by the Laboratory’s correspondent, the price asked for the preparation is $15 an ounce.
The quantity of the preparation received was too small to permit a complete examination, but, from the tests which it was possible to make, the preparation appears to be an aqueous solution containing some suspended matter and small quantities of mercuric benzoate and a chlorid, presumably sodium chlorid. There was no evidence of the presence of an “oily emulsion.” Quantitative tests indicated the presence of a mercuric salt, equivalent to about 0.2783 gm. of crystallized mercuric benzoate per 100 c.c. This corresponds to about 0.00086 gm. in each 5 minims, or about 26.5 per cent. of the amount claimed.—(From Reports A. M. A. Chemical Laboratory, 1916, p. 106.)