“A supply of the crude drug was carried to England by a man who had lived for a short time in the Fiji Islands and it was placed in the hands of a retail house in London. This occurred about 1879. In 1880, two English physicians of repute published laudatory articles on the therapeutic value of tonga in neuralgia and rheumatism. This created a demand for the drug which extended to the United States.” Time showed that tonga was inert therapeutically, and authorities on pharmacology now no longer notice it. As the Council previously reported,[12] the indefinite character of the mixture should, alone, be sufficient to exclude it from practical therapeutics. During the temporary popularity of tonga, the proprietary mixture Tongaline was put on the market for physicians’ use by the Mellier Drug Company, St. Louis. In this, tonga was named as the active ingredient. The commercial interests thus involved have faithfully nourished and kept alive the “tonga” myth. [12] Reports of the Council on Pharm. and Chem., 1912, p. 40. In a recent advertising booklet, “The Therapeutic Properties of the Ingredients of Tongaline,” the virtues of tonga, blue cohosh, colchicum, jaborandi and salicylic acid are discussed. The label of a recently purchased bottle reads: “Tongaline contains Tonga, Cimicifuga Racemosa, Salicylate of Sodium (the salicylic acid being made from pure natural oil) Colchicum and Pilocarpin.” It will be noticed that Tongaline is “made from the pure, natural oil.” In fact, the statement is repeated in red ink, in large letters running across the face of the label, thus emphasizing the alleged importance of this assertion. In this connection it is only necessary to recall that it has been proved clinically, chemically and physiologically that there is absolutely no difference between the salicylic acid made from the natural oil and the synthetic. The formula was thus commented on in the article previously quoted from The Journal: “Tongaline ... is essentially a preparation of sodium salicylate,... The Mellier Drug Company realized the impossibility of creating any marked demand for a nostrum unless it had some real drugs in it--hence the presence of the salicylates. What the actual composition of Tongaline is, no one but the manufacturers know. At one time the following was given as the formula: Fluid Tonga 30 grains Extract of Cimicifuga Racemosa 20 grains Sodium Salicylate 10 grains Pilocarpin Salicylate 1/100 grain Colchin Salicylate 1/500 grain “These amounts refer to the quantity of drugs in each fluidram of the preparation. Whether the nostrum still has this composition we do not know, but assuming that it has, it is quite evident that sodium salicylate is the essential and active ingredient.” The therapeutic indications given on the label of the bottle are: