The Propaganda for Reform in Proprietary Medicines, Vol. 1 of 2Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (American Medical Association)
Science
The Propaganda for Reform in Proprietary Medicines, Vol. 1 of 2
Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (American Medical Association)
Patent medicines
Bromidia (Battle & Co., St. Louis) at once suggests bromids; yet
Bromidia is essentially a chloral rather than a bromid preparation.
This nostrum illustrates the need of the provision in the Council’s
Rule 8 under which recognition is refused pharmaceutical mixtures
whose names do not indicate their most potent ingredients. While the
chloral content of Bromidia has been given considerable publicity, yet
the preparation is used both by physicians and by the public without
due consideration of its potent ingredient. This fact is attested not
only by the fatal results which have followed its use but also by the
many reports of habit formation. As long ago as in 1887 a fatal case
of poisoning was reported[5] to the medical society of the District of
Columbia due to an overdose taken by a Bromidia addict. The physician
who reported this case also gave his experience with another patient
who had the Bromidia habit. In the discussion of the paper a number of
cases were reported by others present in which Bromidia had been taken
without a physician’s advice and with more or less grave symptoms of
poisoning.
[5] The Journal A. M. A., July 9, 1887, p. 55.
In the report of a death of one who had been a slave to Bromidia it was
said:[6] “When the body was found, there were eleven one-ounce Bromidia
bottles about the room or on his person. Nine were entirely empty and
the other two were about half full. None of these bottles indicated
that they had been purchased on a physician’s prescription, only the
druggist’s label marked ‘Bromidia’ being on them.”
[6] The Journal A. M. A., April 21, 1906, p. 1220.
Dr. Horatio C. Wood, Jr., gave[7] a striking illustration of how
preparations like Bromidia come to be used even by physicians without
consideration of their constituents:
[7] The Journal A. M. A., April 21, 1906, p. 1220.
“Within an hour after his father, a Brooklyn physician, had given
him a dose of bromid, H.G.P., a prodigal son, died yesterday at
his father’s home in Brooklyn. Two years ago, when he appeared to
have sown his wild oats, the father made him superintendent of his
country place, near Grants Mills, Delaware County. A week ago the
son left his place, and at 1 o’clock yesterday morning appeared at
his father’s Brooklyn home. He was nervous, and at 9 a. m. begged
for a sedative.
“‘I prescribed the usual quantity of bromidia,’ the young man’s
father told a reporter. ‘He was weak and had suffered from weak
heart and kidney trouble for some time.’
“An hour later the father found the son dying and administered
restoratives, but to no avail.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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