Several years ago the Post-Office Department at Washington was led to take an interest in the question of fraudulent “patent” medicines, and an examination of many of these nostrums was undertaken by government chemists. Fraud orders were issued against some of the most flagrant offenders, forbidding them the use of the mails. This has not done away with the evil, however, for they usually move to another city, and begin business again under another name.
The examinations made for the Post Office Department revealed the fact that a great many of the so-called medicines on the market were intoxicating beverages in disguise. The Internal Revenue Department then took up the matter and a long list of these beverage medicines was sent out to internal revenue agents with instructions that these must not be sold henceforth unless by persons paying a special tax for the sale of alcoholic beverages.
Some of the manufacturers of these nostrums availed themselves of opportunity given to add a recognized medicinal agent to their flavored alcohol and water and such preparations were stricken from the list of those requiring a whisky license for their sale. Peruna and Hostetter’s Bitters were the best-known of these. Peruna had been up to this time what government chemists called “a cheap cocktail.” The report of the pure food commissioner of North Dakota for 1906 gives on page 157 an analysis of it as now upon the market: “Alcohol by volume, 21.25 per cent.; total solids, 3.846 per cent.; ash, .158 per cent.” The report says:—
“The only thing of a medicinal nature that we could find in this preparation appeared to be a small amount of senna combined with a bitters of some kind.”
Proprietary “Foods” have not escaped attention from chemists. Dr. Charles Harrington, for several years secretary of Massachusetts Board of Health, was the first to publish an analysis of these preparations showing their alcoholic strength and their small nutritive content. He lists “foods” examined by him as follows:—
“Liquid Peptonoids 23.03 alcohol; maximum amount recommended will yield less than one ounce of nutriment per day, and the equivalent of 3.50 oz. of whisky. Hemapeptone 10.60 alcohol; Hemaboloids 15.81 alcohol; the maximum dose recommended yields about ¼ oz. of nutriment, and the equivalent of about 1½ oz. of whisky daily. Tonic Beef 15.58 alcohol; doses recommended yield about ½ oz. nutriment daily, and the equivalent of one ounce of whiskey. Mulford’s Predigested Beef 19.72 alcohol; doses recommended yield about 1¼ oz. nutriment daily, and the alcoholic equivalent of about 6 oz. of whisky. There were “Foods” for the sick examined which were non-alcoholic, but their nutritive value was about nothing in comparison to their cost.”
The Committee on Pharmacy of the American Medical Association reports on the following foods thus:—
Carpanutrine 17.3 alcohol; Liquid Peptones (Lilly & Co.) 22.0; Nutrient Wine of Beef Peptone (Armour) 21.5; Nutritive Liquid Peptone 23.0; Panopepton 18.5; Peptonic Elixir 18.8; Tonic Beef 16.1. The report on these says: “There are no fatty substances present in these products; their food value from this point of view is, therefore, nil[.”]
A prominent physician of Philadelphia said of these “Foods” in the Journal of the A. M. A.:—
“I have long been convinced that many a patient has suffered severely when preparations such as these were being used, and that not a few of them have died, chiefly of starvation. * * * A very important disadvantage of these foods is their alcoholic content. Even in the small doses customarily used, the quantity of alcohol is often irritating to the stomach, and may be disadvantageous in other ways.”