BUEEAU OF CHEMISTRY. 445 



PRESCRIPTIOX REMEDIES. 



These prescription remedies usually call for several well-known 

 medicinal agents, together with a coined-name product in the exploita- 

 tion of which the advertiser is interested. In order to fill this 

 so-called prescription it is necessary to purchase the agent sold under 

 the coined name. The number of these remedies has been materially 

 increased during the past year. Analysis reveals the fact that they 

 are composed of well-known simple medicinal agents, and the claims 

 made for them are not in keeping with the facts. The introduction 

 of these mixtures has led to another scheme that might be called 

 "household prescription remedies." They are advertised and sold in 

 the same manner as are those just described, except that the purchaser 

 himself supplies the ingredients necessary to compound the prescrip- 

 tion. For example, in the manufacture of a face lotion, the pros- 

 pective patient is advised to purchase a cheap well-known product 

 under a coined name, mix it at home with certain well-known house- 

 hold agents, among them water, and apply the resulting mixture. 

 The same directions are given for so-called shampoos, obesity re- 

 ducers, and other remedies. The mixtures sold under these trade 

 names are usually among the cheapest available on the market. For 

 example, a certain commodity represented as a face lotion consists 

 essentially of magnesium sulphate colored and perftnned. The 

 amount of magnesium sulphate present in the package is worth less 

 than 1 cent, but the package costs 50 cents. A shampoo exploited 

 under a trade name sells for 75 cents, but consists essentially of 

 borax, the amount contained in the package costing less than 5 cents. 

 These are representative of a large number of products of this type 

 at present on the market. It is of interest to note that these mixtures 

 are sometimes exploited through the "Beauty" departments of 

 certain newspapers. Such commodities are plainly unmitigated 

 frauds. 



PHARMACOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS. 



Studies on flour and nitrites. — Additional experiments on blood 

 pressure of cats and dogs were made with alcoholic and aqueous ex- 

 tracts of unbleached flour and of flour bleached by varying quantities 

 of nitrogen peroxid. The results obtained indicate a fall of blood 

 pressure in all cases, equal in degree, however, for the bleached and 

 unbleached flours. In experiments with sodium and potassium nitrite, 

 a fall of blood pressure was obtained in cats and dogs under ether 

 anaesthesia when relatively small quantities were injected directly 

 into the circulation. The effect of bleached flour on enzyms has been 

 studied as follows: (1) Experiments on autolysis (self-digestion 

 without foreign bacteria) of bleached and unbleached flour have 

 been conducted, but no difference in the rate of autolysis has been 

 observed; (2) artificial digestion experiments were made on gluten 

 from unbleached flour and that bleached by different amounts of nit- 

 rogen peroxid. No conclusion could be reached as to difference in the 

 digestibility of the wet glutens examined, but when the gluten was 

 dried and powdered the digestion was somewhat retarded in some of 

 the samples of bleached flour studied as compared with those obtained 

 from unbleached flour; (3) the effect of nitrites on the salivary 

 digestion of starch was studied, but, although moderately large 

 amounts of sodium nitrite were used, no effect was noticed. 



