Secret remedies : $b What they cost and what they containBritish Medical Association
Science
Secret remedies : $b What they cost and what they contain
British Medical Association
Patent medicines
Much less conspicuously, on another slip chiefly devoted to the
relative quantities in the packages of different size, it was stated:
Those whose ailments have been of long standing must
not expect immediate perceptible results, but with
a little patience and perseverance the result is
SURE.
The “Miracletts” consisted of sugar-coated tablets, the coating being
coloured brown with ferric oxide (so-called chocolate coating). After
removal of the coating they had an average weight of 4·3 grains;
this included the weight of a strong coating of varnish, which was
not removed with the sugar-coating. Analysis showed them to contain
valerianates of quinine and zinc, iron oxide, menthol, kaolin in
considerable quantity, and a little talc. A substance of extract nature
was also present to the extent of about 5 per cent.; it possessed no
characteristic taste or other property by which it could be identified;
a resinous substance, which was found in small quantity, appeared to be
merely the varnish with which the tablets were covered. The quantities
of the different ingredients were determined as nearly as possible, and
the results indicated the following amounts:
Quinine valerianate 0·4 grain.
Zinc valerianate 0·1 ”
Ferric oxide 0·3 ”
Menthol 0·03 ”
Kaolin and talc 2·3 grains
In one tablet.
The estimated cost of the ingredients of the tablets is 4d. a hundred.
THERAPION.
Another “medicine company,” also with an address in London, advertises
three preparations which it calls Therapion. Therapion No. 1 was
described as “the most efficacious remedy” for “all discharges”;
Therapion No. 2 as “the great remedy for impurity of the blood, scurvy,
pimples, spots, blotches, pains and swellings of the joints, gout,”
and so on; and No. 3 as a new French remedy, by the use of which the
shattered health will be restored.
The Expiring Lamp of Life Lighted Up Afresh,
and a new existence imparted in place of what had
so lately seemed worn, “used up,” and valueless.
This wonderful medicine is suitable for all ages,
constitutions, and conditions, in either sex, and it is
difficult to imagine a case of disease or derangement,
whose main features are those of debility, that will
not be speedily and permanently benefited by this
never-failing recuperative essence, which is destined
to cast into oblivion everything that had preceded
it, for this widespread and numerous class of human
ailments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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