Anasarcin and Anedemin
“Anasarcin” and “Anedemin” are the twin nostrums of cardiac pseudotherapy. They are dubbed “twin nostrums” not so much because of any similarity in their formulas, that being a minor consideration in the average nostrum, but because of the close similarity in their methods of exploitation, the therapeutic claims made for them, and the time and place of their birth.
It may be remembered that they both claim Winchester, Tenn., as their birthplace, and they appeared on the market at about the same time; furthermore, a comparison of the claims formerly made for both of them indicated that one mind conceived the main idea that lies back of their exploitation. While Anasarcin is especially dealt with in this article, much of the discussion applies with equal force to Anedemin.
A LUSH FIELD FOR NOSTRUMS
Cardiac disease, with its resultant renal involvement, is frequently encountered; and running, as it does, a chronic course, it offers an almost ideal field of exploitation for the typical nostrum vender. By a typical nostrum vender we mean one whose knowledge of his product is far below that of his appreciation of a certain element of human character. On this element rests the whole secret of the nostrum vender’s success. It is variously termed credulity, gullibility and childlike simplicity, but it is that which often causes even the most conscientious clinician to turn aside from the use of the best known and most dependable drugs at his command, in the face of disappointment and failure, and employ some vaunted mixture which, in his saner moments, he scorns to use.
Anedemin is said to consist of a “Scientific Combination of three of the more recently investigated members of the Digitalis Series, with Sambucus”; that is, of apocynum, strophanthus and squill with elder. It is difficult to know just what idea the statement that it is a “scientific combination” of these drugs is intended to convey, for it is unscientific to mix three drugs of this group for use in fixed proportion in a wide range of conditions, if indeed, there is ever any indication for their use.
The great disadvantages of strophanthus and apocynum pertain to the extreme uncertainty of their absorption from the gastro-intestinal tract. Strophanthus is occasionally absorbed promptly, sometimes so slowly that the therapeutic effects are not induced until an amount equal to several times that which would prove fatal if all of it were absorbed into the circulation has been administered, and, unfortunately, one cannot control the absorption which may continue until a fatal effect is induced. This is true to an even greater degree of apocynum, and it was due to the recognition of this fact that apocynum was not admitted to the U. S. Pharmacopeia IX, the committee on dosage having agreed that no safe and effective dose could be given.
THE COUNCIL’S PREVIOUS FINDINGS
In 1907 the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry examined the literature used in the exploitation of Anasarcin and Anedemin and published its report. Anasarcin tablets, it was pointed out, were said to contain the active principles of Oxydendron arboreum (sour wood), Sambucus canadensis (elder) and Urginea scilla (squill), and the following claims were made for the nostrum:
“Does what dropsy medicaments have hitherto failed to accomplish.”