Chapter XX · SOME ECHOES OF VOLUME I.

The first volume of this book, published in 1908, aroused a very large amount of public interest. Its reception by those primarily concerned was of varying character; two or three incidents in this connection appear worth recording here.

SEIGEL’S SYRUP AND “SECRET REMEDIES.”

We have received from a correspondent particulars of letters which have passed between the proprietors of Seigel’s Syrup and himself. They are characterised by a direct terseness on his side, and the opposite qualities on the other, that make them somewhat entertaining reading. The correspondence opens with a letter from the makers of this nostrum, which is self-explanatory:

Dear Sir,

We received to-day by post a wrapper which had enclosed one of our Mother Seigel pamphlets addressed to you, and on which the sender had copied the stupid so-called analysis of our Syrup from the publication of the British Medical Association. You also copy the still more silly averment, “cost of 3 fluid ounces ¹⁄₃ of 1d.,” and your own comment on the whole is, “Nice profit at 2/6! What humbug”!!

As you seem to be inclined to believe whatever you read, we desire to say: That the pretended analysis is positively absurd; That it does not remotely resemble the actual formula of our medicine, which really contains over a dozen vegetable or herbal extracts; That it costs much more than ¹⁄₃ of 1d. for 3 fluid ounces; That it is actually worth more than it sells for as an effective curative remedy; That it is not a “humbug”; That humbugs do not last forty years and still continue as business successes in all parts of the world as our preparation does.

From your penmanship we think it not unlikely that you are a medical practitioner, in which event your animus becomes quite intelligible. If you are a layman, please consider fairly our assurance that the published analysis (?) is merely an effort of the “Doctors’ Trust,” or “Medical Practitioners’ Trade Union,” to injure successful rivals. Don’t let them humbug You!

It is of course quite possible that the preparation in question “really contains over a dozen vegetable or herbal extracts,” even though the statement follows the phrase “as you seem to be inclined to believe whatever you read.” There is nothing in the report of the analysis, as set forth in Secret Remedies, to the contrary; but in that case the dozen extracts must have been present in too small quantity to be recognizable by chemical or physical tests, which reveal most active drugs even in traces. In the introduction to that volume it is pointed out that vegetable extracts which contain no active principle cannot always be recognized by analysis, and a similar caution is repeated several times; but to any one acquainted with the nature of drugs it is obvious that such limitation of the powers of analysis is of little moment, since active drugs can almost always be recognized with certainty.

The reply to the above letter was the remark that:

The sole question is whether the public is more likely to be humbugged by the British Medical Association, which is certainly a responsible body of experts, or by the unknown vendors of a quack medicine;

And the writer adds:

Most of these abominations hail from America. Did yours originate there?

The makers reply to this in a long letter containing various assertions about their article in nine numbered paragraphs, although they commence by saying:

We have no desire to continue a correspondence which would probably not be accepted in a fair and reasonable spirit on your side.

And they omit to answer the one question that was asked as to the country of origin of the syrup. In acknowledging this letter, the recipient says:

As regards your letter generally, if the British Medical Association have issued false statements damaging to you and to your concoction, your remedy is patent.

If you, and all the other quack medicine dealers, specified in the 184 pages of Secret Remedies, and in the pages of Truth Cautionary List, choose to “take it lying down,” the fair presumption is that the statements are true.

The makers do not appear to have found a further reply, and so the correspondence closes.

THE VARIABLE COMPOSITION OF SECRET REMEDIES.

A correspondent of the Pharmaceutical Journal, in a letter in the issue of January 8th, 1910, draws attention to the differences between the formulae of certain proprietary medicines published in Secret Remedies, Vol. I., as the results of analysis, and those printed on the labels of the medicines when these are imported into France or Italy. The first instance taken is “Dr. Williams’s Pink Pills”; the formula for these given in Secret Remedies is:

Exsiccated sulphate of iron 0 .75 grain

Potassium carbonate, anhydrous 0 .66 „

Magnesia 0 .09 „

Powdered liquorice 1 .4 grains

Sugar 0 .2 grain

In one pill.

while according to the writer of the letter it is given on the label as:

Pot. carb. 0 .07

Ferri sulph. 0 .80

Mangan. oxid. puriss. 0 .02

Nuraemin 0 .05

Sacchar 0 .03

Ext. gentian 0 .025

Aloes 0 .009

[The quantities apparently do not indicate grains, but the fractional parts of the various ingredients in 1 part of the pill.]

The Pharmaceutical Journal’s correspondent proceeds to assume, without further evidence, that the formula published in Secret Remedies is wrong. A little familiarity with the composition of proprietary remedies and the ways of their makers would, however, have taught him that a particular composition in one country or at one time gives not the slightest guarantee of the same composition at another time or in another country. When the two formulae above are compared, it is at once clear that no competent analyst could have obtained from pills having the composition of the second formula results pointing to the first. To begin with, the potassium carbonate of the second is only a fraction of what was found by our analyst, who converted it into sulphate in the usual way, after removal of all other ingredients, and weighed the pure potassium sulphate; there is no loophole for error here. Again, powdered liquorice was found to constitute nearly half the pill, but none is shown in the other formula; it can hardly have been omitted as being unimportant excipient, since it is thought worth while to mention sugar present in only one-thirtieth of the quantity; the fibre of liquorice makes it one of the easiest drugs to recognise with certainty, and none of the ingredients mentioned in the other formula contains any fibre or vegetable tissue at all. These two instances suffice to show that the formulae refer to pills having very different composition, and the other differences are equally incapable of explanation in any other way. The comparison serves to emphasise the obvious fact that the only formula that is of value for showing what is being sold under a given name in a particular country is that obtained by expert examination of the article purchased there in the ordinary way. The second instance which is referred to in the letter in question is that of Laville’s Antigout Remedies. In Secret Remedies, Vol. I., the results of qualitative analyses of these by Dr. Zernik are quoted, and the composition thus given is now shown to differ from what is printed on the label. The statement in Secret Remedies is given on the authority of Dr. Zernik, and we are, of course, unable to answer for his methods of work; but it appears almost certain that remarks similar to the above would apply here also. Thus, Zernik found the pilules to contain guaiacum resin, whereas this is not one of the admitted constituents; it is well known that guaiacum resin can be identified with much greater certainty than most resins, and it is extremely unlikely that any mistake was made about it by so experienced an analyst as Dr. Zernik. The correspondent of the Pharmaceutical Journal adds that “the natural conclusion is a strong doubt as to the accuracy of the other formulae given in the book. Its pages form very interesting reading, but with errors such as these, which could easily have been avoided, the book hardly reflects credit on its authors or any pharmacist who uses it as a book of reference.” If pharmacists are as little able to criticise the claims of the makers of proprietary articles as the writer of this letter appears to be, it is perhaps not surprising that they are often willing to play the part they do in distributing them. Fortunately, evidence is not lacking that many of them regard the quack medicine evil in a very different manner, and welcome such exposures as we have given of many of these preparations. The facts adduced in the letter show very plainly how desirable it is that in this country, as in France and Italy, the law should require the composition of such medicines to be stated on the label. The public could then judge to some extent whether they were receiving fair value for money, and the proprietors could be brought to book if analysis proved that they had departed from the declared formula.

THE VARIABLE DOSAGE OF SECRET REMEDIES.

Among the proprietary medicines the composition of which, as revealed by analysis, has been published in the first volume are various powders, cachets, pills, and tablets, and in these cases the individual weights of different doses have usually been recorded; great variation in the quantity to be taken in one dose has sometimes been shown. Thus in the case of powders sold for the cure of drunkenness powders having an average weight of 1¹⁄₂ grains varied individually from ¹⁄₃ grain to 3 grains, and in another inebriety “cure,” variations from 2.9 to 6 grains were found among ten powders of average weight 4.2 grains. It would appear from such cases that the quantity put into each was merely “a little,” and could not have been either weighed or measured. One of these powders contained acetanilide and bromide, and such variations might be far from negligible in their consequences. In the case of headache powders, most of which consisted chiefly of acetanilide, some of the variations were very serious, the heaviest and lightest powders in a packet of ten differing in one preparation by as much as 6 grains; the average weight of these was 10¹⁄₂ grains, and acetanilide formed 50 per cent. of the constituents. Some ingenuity is shown by one of the makers of headache powders whose article was among those examined, in an advertisement which has appeared rather prominently in some of the pharmaceutical papers. In this advertisement attention is drawn to the “fact” that our analyses showed smaller variations in the weights of the powders in question than in any other; since, however, the lightest and heaviest powders in a packet of ten of average weight 6 grains differed by 0.7 grain (practically 12 per cent.) there seems to be no very good grounds for this self-congratulation on accuracy. And the “fact” itself belongs to the class described by Josh Billings as “facts which are not so,” as in one of the powders analysed—the only other one which consisted of acetanilide only—the extreme variation found was only 0.2 grain; this appears to be referred to in the advertisement as a variation of 2.0 grains. The advertisement states “it is not possible in the ordinary course of dispensing business to weigh powders more accurately than ‘Daisy’ powders are dispensed,” and, as to this, a pharmaceutical correspondent remarks that the statement “is an insult to the pharmacists to whom it is addressed. A dispenser who could not weigh to within 0.7 grain would not remain long in any good pharmacy.” It is not unimportant to recollect, moreover, that it was shown in evidence at an inquest some years ago that extremely wide variations existed in the weights of specimens taken from one and the same packet of the very powders in question, and whatever greater accuracy may exist in the weighing of these powders to-day would seem therefore only to have been secured after attention had been drawn in this forcible way to the dangerous manner in which variable quantities of acetanilide were being distributed as doses.