The first lesson is, that formulas are not always what they seem. A hasty glance at the formula of Anasarcin tablets, the basis of the Anasarcin dropsy cure, creates the impression that it is a non-secret remedy; for it is said to represent a combination of the active principles of oxydendron, sambucus and scilla. As a matter of fact, it is a secret nostrum of the insidious kind. A formula which omits the quantities of its potent ingredients means very little. Further than this, we do not hesitate to charge that the claimed composition is a deliberate deception. The circulars emphasize the claim that Anasarcin consists of the _isolated principles_, and not of the crude drugs. Now, the isolated active principles of sambucus and oxydendron are not on the market, for the good and sufficient reason that no active principles have ever been isolated. Are we to believe that the Anasarcin Company has surpassed the accredited chemists and has discovered such principles and is isolating them? We shall have more to say on this subject presently; but any one in the least familiar with the difficulties attending the isolation of organic principles knows such an idea to be preposterous. Indeed, it is absolutely incompatible with the exhibition of ignorance of the elementary facts of pharmaceutical chemistry which is given by these people when they call the active principles of digitalis and squill “alkaloids.” It is an axiom that the effects of a mixture can only be understood if the action of its components are known. So far as we know, the physiologic effects of oxydendron and sambucus have never been scientifically investigated, for the simple reason that they are too slight and indefinite to promise results. Both are credited with some slight, obscure diuretic action. Oxydendron, the sour wood or sorrel tree, is a small tree of the heath family, the acid leaves of which are said to be chewed by hunters for their pleasant taste and for the relief of thirst. Sambucus is the common elder. It is most unlikely that these two innocuous substances should play any part in the claimed powerful effect of Anasarcin; they are evidently put in the formula, we do not say in the preparation, to obscure the fact that Anasarcin is composed principally of squill. That this is so can be gathered unmistakably from a study of the pharmacologic action of Anasarcin as described by its promoters: