The Propaganda for Reform in Proprietary Medicines, Vol. 2 of 2Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (American Medical Association)
Science
The Propaganda for Reform in Proprietary Medicines, Vol. 2 of 2
Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (American Medical Association)
Patent medicines
Recent and more objectionable advertising of Gonosan makes it advisable
for the Council to take action and to publish a report. The tone of
this advertising is reflected by the following quotation from a recent
advertising circular:
“The old-established balsamic treatment of gonorrhea, for some
years neglected in favor of the local injection of organic silver
and other germicidal salts, has, with the increasing knowledge
and attention paid to the composition and purity of the balsams,
regained to a large extent the confidence formerly reposed in them.
“It may now be said that the combined treatment with local
injections and internal administration of natural balsamic products
completely dominates modern gonorrheal therapy.”
Any one conversant with current medical literature and practice would
stamp these statements as misleading exaggerations. The balsams,
oleoresins and volatile oils may have some value as minor adjuvants
in the treatment of gonorrhea, but that is all. The position in this
respect has not changed materially in recent years. These agents do not
have a value equal to that of local treatment, as the quoted statement
implies.
The claims made for Gonosan might with equal force be made for oil of
santal alone. Kava kava, the other constituent, belongs to the pepper
family; it had a temporary vogue some two or three decades ago, but has
failed to maintain a place. It has never been recognized officially.
There is no scientific evidence that it has any value either alone or
as an adjuvant to sandal oil. The “clinical reports” quoted in the
advertising circulars, rather curiously, nearly all date back ten
years or more, viz., to a period when the attitude of the profession
toward proprietary remedies was less critical than it is now. It would
be interesting to know whether these authors still adhere to their
opinion, or whether any of them have subsequently had experiences
similar to that of a correspondent who wrote:
“Gonosan, at my hands, did not prove to be of more essential
value in the treatment of gonorrhea than any other sandalwood oil
preparation. The various claims made for Gonosan, that it possesses
sedative and anesthetic properties, that by its continuous use the
urethral discharge disappears more rapidly and that, if combined with
appropriate diet and rest, it is liable to prevent complications, are,
according to my experience, not corroborated by actual results.”
The only experimental work quoted in support of Gonosan, that of Pohl,
is not convincing. The doses that Pohl found necessary to influence
experimental purulent pleurisy makes it impossible to transfer his work
to the clinic. (He found a dosage of oil of santal corresponding to an
ounce per day, for man, inefficient; positive results were obtained
only with 2 ounces per day.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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