“In fact, Urodonal is five times more active than piperazine, and thirty-seven times more active than lithia. We are, therefore, entitled to say that no other eliminator of uric acid can be compared with it.”
“Being 37 times more active than lithia, it clears the heart valves of any sandy substances which may clog them, and checks the atheromatous degeneration of the blood vessels.”
These extracts indicate sufficiently the extravagant tone of the advertising (Rule 6): None of the ingredients are notably active in dissolving uric acid when administered by mouth. None produce any marked increase of uric acid elimination. No intelligent physician would use a uric acid solvent for “bilious lithiasis”; and their usefulness in the other conditions is open to doubt, to put it mildly.
Although the preparation is a simple mixture, the name does not indicate the components, but inclines to therapeutic suggestion (Rule 8).
Nothing is to be gained by combining several drugs which are useless, severally, for the purpose intended, as in the present case (Rule 10).
Urodonal is marketed under inconsistent statements of composition and with exaggerated therapeutic claims; the name is nondescriptive and the mixture is unscientific. The Council decided that the preparation should be declared ineligible for conflict with Rules 1, 4, 6, 8 and 10 and that this report should be published.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Aug. 14, 1915.)
FORMAMINT
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The following report has been authorized for publication.