LECITHIN PREPARATIONS OMITTED FROM N. N. R.
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The following report was sent to the manufacturers of the various lecithin preparations mentioned therein. As the replies of the manufacturers were obviously written from the commercial point of view and did not affect the Council’s conclusion that lecithin, when indicated, would be given more advantageously in the form of yolk of egg than in the less pure manufactured product, the Council directed that the report be published, together with extracts from the replies of the manufacturers.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
Commercial lecithin preparations are at best very impure substances; all are more or less altered from the original composition. Even with great care, the methods of extraction and drying always produce considerable decomposition; and in some cases the phosphorus and nitrogen contents bear but little relation to the theoretical values. (Long, J. H.: Jour. Am. Chem. Soc., xxx, 881. McLean, Hugh: Chem. Abstracts, May 20, 1915). There is not the slightest reliable evidence that commercial lecithin has any advantage over the lecithin contained in natural foods; the weight of probability is on the other side.
The doses recommended, moreover, are absurdly small; and the amount thus administered is without practical value. Why administer a few milligrams of a more or less decomposed lecithin when it is possible to give a far larger weight of a purer substance in the form of yolk of egg?
In view of these considerations the Council voted that the following proprietary products be omitted from the next edition of N. N. R.:
Glycerole of Lecithin
Lecibrin
Lecithin Solution
Lecithol
Neuro-Lecithin-Abbott
and that the general article on “Lecithin Preparations” be transferred to the annual Council Reports as a matter of record.