436 PATENT MEDICINES AND SECRET REMEDIES. 



THERAPEUTICS. 



PATENT MEDICINES AND SECRET REMEDIES. 



The German chemists are very unmerciful to those who would impose- 

 upon the public by worthless preparations; and one Berlin journal the In- 

 dustrie Blatter, edited by Dr. E. Jacobsen, offers to analyze gratis any patent 

 medicine sent to them in the original package. The analyses of over eleven 

 hundred such preparations, made by Dr. Ilager, Wittstein, Eose, Chandler, 

 Eeveil, and others, have been collected together by E. Hahn and published 

 in book-form by J. Springer. A few of these analyses we propose to lay 

 before our readers for their information and amusement, remarking, how- 

 ever, that in some cases it is impossible for the analyst to exactly deter- 

 mine some of the organic remedies, such as gums, balsam, and resins, when 

 in combination or solution, and noting the difficulty of accurate translation 

 of pharmaceutical terms : 



Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery. A one dollar bottle holds 220- 

 grains of a brownish colored clear liquid, consisting of 15 grains pure 

 honey, 1 grain extract of poisonous or acrid lettuce (bot. lierha lactucce virosoe), 

 2 grains laudanum, 100 grains dilute alcohol (64 per cent), tasting like fusel 

 oil and wood spirit, with 105 grains of water. 



Dr. Livingston's Ant Balsam, a German remedy, consisting of 72 grain? 

 castor oil, 2 grains balsam Peru, and 5 drops oil of bergamot. 



American Tooth-ache Drops, made by Majewsky in Warsaw, have differ- 

 ent compositions. Those which took the prize at Vienna consisted of com- 

 mon salt and brandy, colored with harmless cochineal red (price, 37^ cts.). 



Asthma Pastils (Danl. White & Co., New York), according to the analy- 

 sis of Dr. Fleck, contain 20-1 jjer cent saltpetre, 3-5 per cent impure scara- 

 monium resin, 35-0 per cent gum and sugar, 40 per cent charcoal jDOwder, 

 leaves and stems of some plant. 



Ayer's Pills consist of pej)er, colocynth, gamboge (gutti), and aloes. 



Ayer's Hair Yigor, a solution of 0-6 per cent of sugar of lead. 



Horsford's Baking Powder. One j)owder contains acid phosphate of 

 lime and magnesia mixed with a certain quantity of flour ; the other is bi- 

 carbonate of soda. 



Berlin Balsam, for cure of all kinds of sores, burns, cuts, wounds, ulcers, 

 chilblains, etc., is nothing but common glycerine contaminated with a con- 

 siderable amount of chloride of calcium. 



Cook's Balsam of Life is a filtered decoction of 20 parts borax in 250 

 parts water, and 1^ parts pulverized camphor in 1 liter of liquid. Used 

 externally for toothache and all skin diseases. 



Bucher's Fire Extinguishing Powder contains 59 parts saltpeter, 36 of 

 sulphur, 4 08 charcoal, 1 of oxide of iron. We fail to see the advantage of 

 this peculiar sort of impure gunpowder as a fire extinguisher. 



