The Committee on Pharmacy also reported on cod-liver oil preparations. They said: “A preparation claiming to represent cod-liver oil which does not contain oil in some form is fraudulent. Waterbury’s Metabolized Cod-Liver Oil and Hagee’s Cordial of Cod-Liver Oil are cited as examples. It is claimed by the manufacturers that the latter represents 33 per cent. of pure Norwegian cod-liver oil, but in neither of these preparations did the tests made by the committee show any oil. Analysis revealed sugar, alcohol, and glycerine, none of which is contained in cod-liver [oil.”]
Vinol is advertised as Wine of Cod-Liver Oil, but is admittedly without oil, and according to analysis contains 18.8 per cent. alcohol. Wampole’s Tasteless Preparation of Cod-Liver Oil showed 20.05 per cent. of alcohol.
Cod-Liver Oil is considerably out of date now as a prescribed remedy because physicians have found that it impairs appetite. Cream and fresh butter and olive oil are advised instead.
Australia has been such a harvest field for patent medicine manufacturers that a government commission was appointed to study the subject. This commission presented a voluminous report to the parliament of 1907. This report gives an analysis of most of the extensively advertised medicines. Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills are said to be made of oil of juniper 1 drop, hemlock pitch 10 grains, potassium nitrate 5 grains, powdered fenugreek (Greek hay) 4 grains, wheat flour 4 grains, maize starch 2 grains. The report says: “The stuff is the cheapest kind of skin-plaster made up into pills.” The seeds of fenugreek are used mainly for poultices. Doan’s Dinner Pills contain two drastic purgatives, podophyllin and aloin. Both of these are dangerous drugs. Aloin frequently produces hemorrhoids (piles). The British Medical Journal says that the material in forty of the Kidney Pills and four Dinner Pills would cost one English halfpenny (one cent).
Vitae-Ore is given as consisting of ordinary sulphate of iron (green vitriol) to which a little Epsom salts has been added. Munyon’s Kidney Cure, which claims to cure Bright’s disease, gravel, and all urinary diseases, is given as composed entirely of sugar. Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills are said to be an iron pill much the same as the ordinary Blaud’s Pills which are sold in drug-stores for half, or less than half, the price of the proprietary article. (Iron is said by recent investigators to be very injurious to the stomach.)
The Committee on Pharmacy of the American Medical Association has analyzed many proprietary medicines; from their reports the following analyses are taken. “Health Grains,” which are claimed to be a remedy for “Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Nervousness, etc.,” were found to consist of 87.50 per cent. of coarse quartz sand, and 12.50 per cent. of rock candy and syrup.
[“Hoff’s] Consumption Cure consists essentially of sodium cinnamate and extract of opium, a mixture at one time suggested for the treatment of tuberculosis, but which has been discarded by physicians. A medicine which depends on opium for whatever therapeutic effect it may have is, when sold indiscriminately to the laity, inherently vicious.”
Sartoin Skin Food for “sunburn, and all skin blemishes” was made of Epsom salts colored with a pink dye. The government prosecuted the company sending out Epsom salts as a “food,” and they were fined $20 for thus seeking to dupe silly women.
Malt extracts are very extensively used at the present time, under the popular notion that they are an aid to starch digestion. That they are a product of the brewery has caused them to be looked upon with suspicion by cautious people, but the multitude has apparently given no thought, or care, as to whether or not they may be alcoholic. Dr. Charles Harrington presented the results of an examination of these preparations at a meeting of the Boston Society of Medical Sciences, held Nov. 17, 1896. The following is quoted from the journal of the society for November, 1896:—
“Twenty-one different brands of liquid malt extract were obtained and analyzed. That they were not true malt extracts is shown by the fact that in no one was there the slightest diastatic power; all were alcoholic, some being stronger than beer, ale, or even porter. In a number of specimens a large amount of salicylic acid was detected.”