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
Analysis showed the presence of alcohol, glycerine, potassium iodide,
salicylic acid, and a vegetable extract which from its properties and
the analysis of the ash was evidently a purified extract of _Fucus
vesiculosus_. The proportion of the latter drug represented could not,
of course, be determined with certainty for the reasons already given,
but the amounts of the other ingredients were ascertained by analysis,
and the formula was approximately as follows:
Potassium iodide 0·3 grain.
Salicylic acid 1·0 ”
Glycerine 40 minims.
Fluid extract of _Fucus vesiculosus_ 70 ”
Water To 1 fluid ounce.
The estimated cost of the ingredients (6½ fluid ounces) is 3d.
MARMOLA.
This preparation is supplied by another American Company, which also
has a depôt in London. It is sold in packages, containing ½ ounce,
price 2s. 6d.
This preparation, which has been largely advertised in daily and
weekly newspapers, is not represented as a proprietary article, but
is mentioned as one ingredient of a prescription to be made up at a
chemist’s. The following advertisement is a sample:
Is Fatness a Social Offence?
“The female form, being capable of expressing a supreme
degree of grace, should be an inspiration in our daily
lives and lead up to higher ideals of beauty,” said
an art lecturer lately. Therefore the fat woman is an
enemy to the artistic uplift, for she is entirely too
heavy for any wings of fancy to raise.
Why should any woman remain fat when it is so easy
to reduce one’s flesh? A woman may take but little
exercise and enjoy the best of food, and still
preserve a beautiful figure. She has at hand a simple
fat-reducer that takes the place of starving and
gymnastics. It consists of a dessertspoonful after
meals and at bedtime of this simple mixture: One
half-ounce of Marmola, one ounce of fluid extract of
Glycyrrhiza B.P., one ounce of pure Glycerine B.P.,
and Peppermint Water to make six ounces in all. Every
over-fat person should try it. It’s quite harmless, and
will take off as much as a pound of fat a day. With a
chemist’s handy, anyone can have a good figure at a
reasonable cost.
A dessertspoonful of the mixture prescribed would contain about 9 or 10
grains of Marmola. The prescription and directions were reproduced on
the label of the package, and it was added:
If faithfully taken as directed for 60 or 90 days,
satisfactory results should be obtained.
which is a decidedly milder statement than that in the advertisement
that it “will take off as much as a pound of fat a day.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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