Trimethol preparations are advertised for use in all conditions dependent on intestinal putrefaction. The advertising claims made are very extensive and some of them give to “Trimethol” the scope of a panacea. For example: “Physicians are constantly reporting cases where Trimethol has been especially efficient, and describing conditions (until recently not associated with intestinal infection) which have been distinctly benefited by its use. This would seem to bear out the contentions of Charcot and Metchnikoff that 90% of all human ailments have their origin in intestinal infection. “The careful practitioner, when in doubt, will bear this in mind, now that we have a really efficient and non-toxic intestinal germicide--not a mere antiseptic.” The Walker-Leeming Laboratories have not formally requested the Council to consider the Trimethol preparations, though in a personal letter to a member of the Council J. T. Ainslie Walker invited an investigation of his compound. For the investigation of Trimethol and its preparation the Council secured the aid of a bacteriologist who has given much attention to the study of the intestinal flora. The Walker-Leeming Laboratories and J. T. Ainslie Walker were both asked to submit details of experimental studies and also to furnish a supply of the pure “Trimethol.” But the only data sent that had any definiteness set forth the bacterial counts made of plate cultures of stools of one patient before and after the administration of Trimethol Capsules. REFUSE TO FURNISH TRIMETHOL The request for the pure substance was refused, on the grounds that the substance was not used in the undiluted form. The failure to furnish the chemical substance claimed as the essential constituent of the Trimethol preparations is to be deprecated if indeed it has not greater significance. At least it made it impossible for the Council’s expert to express his results in terms of absolute Trimethol of established composition. The data obtained apply only to the market preparations claimed to contain Trimethol. So far as the investigation and report go, “Trimethol” is a hypothetical substance.