PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURERS AND THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD
At various times we have given more or less complete accounts of the prosecutions the United States Government has brought against nostrum exploiters under the Food and Drugs Act. One of the more recent of these, while of comparatively little interest per se, is of importance to the medical profession, because of certain elements connected with it. The case is known technically as “Notice of Judgment No. 284” and deals with the “Alleged Misbranding of Danderine.” The gist of the case is as follows: Casks of Danderine—a widely advertised “hair tonic”—were shipped in carload lots from Michigan to West Virginia, where the product was bottled, labeled and put in condition to be retailed. Danderine contains a percentage of alcohol which, while given on the labels of the bottles in which it is sold, was not stated on the casks in which the preparation was shipped in bulk. The government sought to confiscate, under the Food and Drugs Act, sixty-five casks thus shipped because the quantity or proportion of alcohol in the casks was not stated. The Knowlton Danderine Company resisted the confiscation and the court upheld the company’s claim.
The point in this case which is—or should be—of interest to the medical profession is to be found in the “statement of facts” presented by the Knowlton Danderine Company in its own defense. Here it is said that: “Parke, Davis & Co., who are mentioned in the said libel as shippers ... are under contract with the said Knowlton Danderine Company ... to compound the said formula ...” Elsewhere it is stated: “Parke, Davis & Co. were ... the manufacturing agents, under contract, of the owner, the Danderine Company ...”
This evidently means that Parke, Davis & Co., who are generally supposed to manufacture only “ethical” preparations—proprietary or otherwise—and as such to desire the respect and good wishes of the medical profession, are in the business of furnishing the supplies for nostrum venders. What Danderine is, it is hardly necessary to specify. The widely distributed advertisements of this “hair tonic” nostrum with the slogan: “Danderine Grows Hair and We Can Prove It” are sufficiently well-known to all who read to make a lengthy disquisition on the product unnecessary.
It is interesting in this connection to note that according to newspaper dispatches the Danderine Company has absorbed the Sterling Remedy Company, which exploits “Cascarets.” Three years ago a physician, who is also a pharmacist, wrote to the Medical World regarding the manufacture of Cascarets:
“... I have positive evidence, which I will gladly submit, that P., D. & Co., make all of them [Cascarets], and that they have a contract with the Cascaret people not to make anything similar for any one else.”
In the circular which comes in the Danderine packages two other “specialties” are advertised: “Neuralgine” for “sick, weak, tired nerves” and “Drake’s Palmetto Compound” for “weak stomachs, sluggish livers, disordered kidneys,” and various other derangements of the system. The question naturally arises, are these, too, shipped in casks from Parke, Davis & Co., and merely bottled and labelled in West Virginia?
Not that the Danderine case is the first one in which Parke, Davis & Co. have been exposed as manufacturers of nostrum supplies. “Vitaopathy” a method of “treatment” practiced by the notorious New York Institute of Physicians and Surgeons in the person of “Prof.” Adkin and apparently consisting of “absent treatment” and pills, was finally put out of business by a fraud-order from the post office department. The concern used to advertise:
“In Professor Adkin’s laboratory, his chemists are daily engaged in extracting the life-and-health-giving principle from rare vegetables, fruits and plants.”
“Prof.” Adkin had no laboratory; his chemists, according to the government report, were Parke, Davis & Co., from whom he purchased the tablets which formed part of his stock-in-trade of quackery.
The Nutriola Company of Chicago was declared fraudulent by the postal authorities and a full account of the methods of this fake medical concern appeared in The Journal, April 28, 1906. Nutriola was advertised as:
“The greatest Chemical-Medical Preparation ever prepared by the skill of man.”
“Nutriola and Nature are the only invincible conquerors of diseases ever known.”
The promoter of this scheme was one Edward F. Hanson, who was questioned by the government inspectors regarding the manufacture of the Nutriola nostrum. Quoting from the government report:
“Q. Please name the chemists who now manufacture the remedies of the Nutriola Company.”
“A. Parke, Davis & Company, Detroit; E. L. Patch Manufacturing Company, Stoneham, Mass.; Seabury & Johnson, New York.”
Not that the course pursued by Parke, Davis & Co. is by any means an exceptional one in the pharmaceutical world. It may be recalled that The Journal has previously referred to the fact that Sharp & Dohme are reported to make or to have made the “Getwell Tablets” for the “patent medicine” concern which exploits the nostrum; and that Frederick Stearns & Co. make or did make the widely advertised “cures” Shac and Zymole Trokeys also has been mentioned. That Seabury & Johnson made preparations for a fake medicine concern was brought to light by Mr. Adams in the “Great American Fraud” series. And unquestionably there are many others. The attitude taken by such houses seems to be that they are willing to furnish anything in the pharmaceutical line that anyone is willing to pay for, whether it is for legitimate use of the physician or pharmacist or for furthering the business by which the ignorant or gullible sick are humbugged and defrauded.—(From The Journal A. M. A., July 2, 1910.)