What were the ingredients of the Indian Root Pills and the other Comstock preparations?  Originally, the formulas for the various remedies were regarded as closely held secrets, divulged only to proprietors and partners—­and not even to all of them—­and certainly never revealed to the purchasers.  But despite this secrecy, charges of counterfeiting and imitating popular preparations were widespread.  In many cases, the alleged counterfeits were probably genuine—­to the extent that either of these terms has meaning—­for it was a recurrent practice for junior partners and clerks at one drug house to branch off on their own, taking some of the secrets with them—­just as Andrew B. White left Moore and joined the Comstocks, bringing the Indian Root Pills with him.

In the latter years, under the rules of the Federal Food and Drug Act, the ingredients were required to be listed on the package; thus we know that the Indian Root Pills, in the 1930s and 1940s, contained aloes, mandrake, gamboge, jalap, and cayenne pepper.

Aloe is a tropical plant of which the best known medicinal varieties come from Socotra and Zanzibar; those received by the Comstock factory were generally described as Cape (of Good Hope) Aloe.  The juice Aloes is extracted from the leaves of this plant and since antiquity has been regarded as a valuable drug, particularly for its laxative and vermifuge properties. Mandrake has always been reputed to have aphrodisiac qualities. Gamboge is a large tree native to Ceylon and Southeast Asia, which produces a resinous gum, more commonly used by painters as a coloring material, but also sometimes employed in medicine as a cathartic. Jalap is a flowering plant which grows only at high altitudes in Mexico, and its root produces an extract with a powerful purgative effect.  All of these ingredients possessed one especial feature highly prized by the patent-medicine manufacturers of the nineteenth century, i.e., they were derived from esoteric plants found only in geographically remote locations.  One does find it rather remarkable, however, that the native Indian chiefs who confided the secrets of these remedies to Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard were so familiar with drugs originating in Asia and Africa.[11] The Indians may very well have been acquainted with the properties of jalap, native to this continent, but the romantic circumstances of its discovery, early in the last century seem considerably overdrawn, as the medicinal properties of jalap were generally recognized in England as early as 1600.

Whether the formula for the Indian Root Pills had been constant since their “discovery”—­as all advertising of the company implied—­we have no way of knowing for sure.  However, the company’s book of trade receipts for the 1860s shows the recurring purchase of large quantities of these five drugs, which suggests that the ingredients did remain substantially unchanged for over a century.  For other remedies manufactured by the company, the ingredients purchased included: