294 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1909. 
Collar gol. — A  special  committee  appointed  to  inquire  into  the 
claims  made  by  the  American  agents  of  collargol  find  that  the 
advertising  matter  relating  to  collargol  contains  exaggerated  and 
misleading  statements  and  typifies  the  all  too  wide-spread  practice 
of  advertising  proprietary  articles  by  putting  forth  the  biased  views 
or  wishes  of  the  owners  as  scientific  facts. — /.  Amer.  Med.  Assoc., 
1909,  v.  52,  pp.  862-876. 
Mercol. — An  interesting  phase  of  the  deception  that  has  been  and 
is  being  practiced,  willingly  and  unwillingly,  by  and  on  the  medical 
profession,  is  well  illustrated  in  a  recent  number  of  the  Journal  of 
the  American  Medical  Association.  A  very  capable  and  widely 
known  physician  took  issue  with  the  report  of  the  Council  on  Phar- 
macy and  Chemistry  on  mercol,  a  supposedly  1  per  cent,  solution 
of  mercuric  iodide  in  a  bland  neutral  oil  and  apparently  a  mineral 
oil  in  which  a  minute  trace  of  mercuric  iodide  was  dissolved.  The 
physician  actually  saw  the  mercuric  iodide  weighed  out,  placed  in 
the  requisite  amount  of  the  oil,  dissolved  by  means  of  heat,  and 
a  portion  of  the  solution  bottled,  sealed,  and  forwarded  to  the 
Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association.  Chemical  examina- 
tion showed  this  latter  sample  to  be  practically  identical  with  the 
first ;  mineral  oil  with  only  a  trace  of  mercuric  iodide.  Evidently 
the  physician  and,  possibly,  the  manufacturer  himself  have  been 
misled  by  the  shortcomings  or  faults  of  the  "  process."  The  writer 
of  the  article  points  out  that  in  the  making  of  remedial  agents 
sins  of  omission  may  be  as  potent  for  harm  as  sins  of  commission ; 
ignorance  or  incapacity  may  be  as  deadly  as  dishonesty  or  fraud, 
and  concludes  that  it  is  the  duty  as  well  as  the  business  of  a  drug 
manufacturer  to  base  his  claims  on  his  finished  products  rather 
than  on  the  component  parts  used  in  their  manufacture. — /.  Amer. 
Med.  Assoc.,  1909,  v.  52,  p.  1595. 
Ungueniine. — Puckner  and  Clark  report  an  examination  of  un- 
guentine  that  indicates  the  uncertainty  of  proprietary  remedies.  The 
claims  made  by  the  manufacturers,  from  time  to  time,  are  contrasted 
with  the  analysis  which  indicates  that  unguentine  contains  not  alum 
but  aluminum  acetate,  zinc  oxide,  or,  more  probably,  zinc  carbonate, 
practically  no  ichthyol,  and  about  1  per  cent,  of  phenol.  The  oint- 
ment base  is  in  the  main  petrolatum. — /.  Amer.  Med.  Assoc.,  1909, 
v.  52,  pp.  1047-1048. 
Arterenol  chlorhydrate  occurs  as  a  white  fine-grained,  odorless, 
crystalline  powder  that  is  slightly  anaesthetic  to  the  tongue,  readily 
