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
This Sarsaparilla is the great purifier of the blood
and general juices of the system, it effects the most
salutary changes in disease; cures scrofula, salt
rheum, all scorbutic disorders, chronic sore eyes,
rheumatism, piles, liver complaints, erysipelas, all
blotches and eruptions of the skin; in short, it
removes every impurity of the blood, and all humours
and morbid collections of the body.
The directions given on the label were:
Take half a wineglassful three or four times a day,
an hour before or after meals. Persons very weak and
debilitated may begin with a tablespoonful and increase
the dose as the patient recovers health and strength.
It is better to take it without the addition of water.
Analysis showed 100 fluid parts of the liquid to contain 18·2 parts
of solids, of which 5·5 parts were sugar (partly inverted) and 2·5
ash, the remainder being of the nature of a vegetable extract. The
mineral constituents were only those common to the ash of most drugs,
and no metallic salts were found in medicinal doses; nothing of
alkaloidal nature was present. The mixture contained 8·1 per cent.
by volume of alcohol. In the case of a vegetable preparation of this
kind, containing no definite active principle that can be identified
chemically, it is not possible to state with certainty the various
drugs from which it may have been prepared; a study of its general
properties, and a series of careful comparisons, pointed to the
present mixture being of similar nature to the compound concentrated
solution of sarsaparilla (liquor sarsae compositus concentratus) of the
_British Pharmacopœia_, with the omission of the liquorice, and with
the addition of sugar: the drugs in the official preparation (besides
liquorice) are sarsaparilla, sassafras, guaiacum wood, and mezereon. A
liquor prepared in this manner, with the alcohol reduced to the amount
found in the mixture under examination and the aroma slightly increased
by adding a little additional oil of sassafras, agreed fairly well both
in general properties and the results of chemical examination with the
medicine under consideration.
MUNYON’S BLOOD CURE.
Munyon’s Homœopathic Home Remedy Company has an office in London,
but the label on the bottle bears the words “Manufactured in U.S. of
America.” On the outer package it was stated:
It eradicates all Impurities from the Blood, and
cures Scrofulitic Eruptions, Rash on the Scalp, Scald
Head, Itching and Burning, and any form of Unhealthy,
Blotchy, Pimply, or Scaly Skin;
and similar claims were put forward on the label and in a circular
enclosed with the bottle.
The bottle cost 1s. and contained about 200 pellets or pilules, of the
average weight of ½ grain. They consisted of sugar; careful search was
made for small quantities of medicament, but no other ingredient could
be detected. Quantitative determination of the sugar showed just 100
per cent.
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