“To provide the needed rest the patient should be instructed to simply keep the parts clean with warm water for the first week and let the discharge continue until you can control it by internal medication. I wish to emphasize the fact that there is no way that any acutely inflamed portion of the genito-urinary tract can get the rest required so completely as by administration of Sanmetto.... After the acute gonorrhea has begun to subside the Sanmetto should be aided by mild astringent injections.” If there is any well-established fact in medicine, it is that gonorrhea is a serious disease--serious alike to the sufferer and to the community--and one which needs careful attention from the very first. To claim, either directly or by implication, that it can be cured by such a mixture designed to act on the kidneys, bladder and nervous system is false and dangerous doctrine. The physician who prescribes Sanmetto prescribes a secret medicine for conditions which he is presumably competent to treat with simple remedies of which he knows the origin and action and which he can vary to suit the needs of the individual. Sanmetto is a secret nostrum the exploitation of which is an invitation to haphazard, uncritical therapy and a menace to public health.--(_From The Journal A. M. A., March 13, 1915._) SECRETOGEN Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry The Council has authorized publication of the following report dealing with two internal secretion specialties--Secretogen Elixir and Secretogen Tablets--to call attention to the unfounded and extravagant claims made for this class of products. W. A. Puckner, Secretary. Test tube experiments show that pepsin hydrolyzes proteins in acid solutions; that pancreatin digests protein in alkaline liquids, and that diastase converts starch into sugar. Based on these facts, it was assumed that these ferments would aid digestion. This assumption was correct if limited to certain cases of dyspepsia in which it can be shown that certain ferments are absent or deficient. But this limitation was not realized or remembered; on the contrary, the indiscriminate use of digesting ferments in all kinds of cases of indigestion became widespread and still continues, although to a less extent. Herein lies the great disappointment that has followed the use of these ferments. More recently hormones were discovered, and while their importance has not been fully worked out, it has been assumed that they are responsible for the secretion of digestive ferments, and that in their absence this secretion fails. Without waiting for proof of this assumption, that is, that digestive failure is due to lack of hormones, proprietary medicine promoters are already placing on the market various secretion specialties.