The much-vaunted glycerophosphates are decomposed to and excreted as phosphates. Sollmann's remarks apply to all similar proprietary articles:
"A proprietary compound of glycerophosphates and casein has been widely and extravagantly advertised as 'Sanatogen'. It is a very costly food, and in no sense superior to ordinary casein, such as cottage cheese."
Hypophosphites have been boomed by various people, chiefly for financial reasons. Five or six of them are usually prescribed, with the addition of cod liver oil, and perhaps quinine, and (or) iron and strychnine, the complexity of the prescription being expected, apparently, to compensate for the uselessness of its various ingredients.
To deduce rational remedies, it is first necessary to
elucidate the causes of inefficiency; and to expect a brain which is out of order to function in an orderly manner simply because it is supplied with one of the substances necessary to its normal functioning (regardless of whether a deficiency of that substance is the cause of the disorder), is as rational as it would be to expect to restart an automobile engine, the magneto of which was broken, by filling up the half-empty petrol tank.
CHAPTER XXI
TRAINING THE NERVOUS CHILD
"When shall I begin to train my child?" said a young mother to an old doctor.
"How old is the child, madam?"
"Two years, sir!"
"Then, madam, you have lost just two years," answered the old physician, gravely.