THE DIRECT SALES COMPANY
During the past four or five years, The Journal has had inquiries similar in effect to this, just received from Dr. E. P. Jewett of Gardner, Mass.:
“Will you kindly inform me regarding a drug manufacturing company by the name of the Direct Sales Company, Buffalo, New York? Are their products standard and reliable so far as you know?”
The Direct Sales Company, Inc., Buffalo, has, according to its letterhead, the following officers:
Geo. J. Dotterweich, President and Treasurer,
C. K. Dotterweich, Vice-President,
Louis B. Seufert, Secretary.
This concern circularizes physicians and emphasizes that it sells “Only by Mail.” It also features a “profit sharing rebate” scheme, whereby purchasers receive a coupon representing 10 per cent. of the invoice value of each purchase. After $100 worth of merchandise has been purchased the $10 worth of coupons when “presented for redemption at one time” will be “honored as cash”—presumably on the purchase of additional goods.
The Direct Sales Company catalogues have for some years, carried a guaranty, which reads, in part:
“We absolutely guarantee all preparations to be in exact accordance with the National Pure Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1906.
“We also absolutely guarantee all preparations bearing our label to be equal, if not superior, to any on the market.”
In one of the Quarterly Bulletins of the State Board of Health of New Hampshire, issued last year, this paragraph appeared:
“The Direct Sales Company, Inc., Buffalo, N.Y., is a pharmaceutical concern which until recently has done business direct with New Hampshire physicians. In two or three instances complaints have been received by this department that the preparations sold seemed to be lacking in potency. Some time ago a physician sent us a specimen of codein sulphate tablets, one-fourth grain, concerning which he was suspicious, admission being made that the price paid was very much less than current quotations. The amount of codein sulphate actually found per tablet proved to be but one-sixteenth grain. Later on, having subsequently received a new lot from this source, the same physician sent us a second sample, the composition of which was found to be practically identical with the first. Acting under the federal law, 500 lot packages of the following preparations were next purchased of the company direct, the analytical results indicating serious deficiency in every case, as follows:
“Tablets salicylic acid, 5 grains ... 1.72 grains found.
“Tablets acetylsalicylic acid, 5 grains ... 2.31 grains found.
“Tablets acetanilid, 3 grains ... 1.88 grains found.
“Tablets codein sulphate, 1⁄4 grain ... 1⁄15 grain found.
“Tablets nux and pepsin No. 2, claiming pepsin 1 grain, extract nux vomica, 1⁄10 grain, found to have a gross average weight per tablet of only 1.17 grains, 0.54 grains of which was represented by sugar and other medicinally inert material.
“Tablets Infant’s Anodyne (Waugh) showed serious discrepancy from formula.”
The Bulletin added the statement that, as the company could not be reached under the New Hampshire laws, the federal authorities were appealed to. The result of this appeal appeared in Chemical Supplement 54, issued Aug. 21, 1918, by the Bureau of Chemistry of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. This government bulletin contained Notice of Judgment No. 6193, which describes cases of adulteration and misbranding of some of the drugs put out by the Direct Sales Company. Briefly, it may be said that some 2 grain acetanilid tablets sold by this concern were found by the government chemists to contain, roughly, about 12⁄3 (1.61) grains; some 1⁄4 grain calomel tablets were found to contain only about 1⁄6 (0.163) grain; some 1 grain quinin sulphate tablets were found to have only about 2⁄3 (0.63) grain; some 21⁄2 grain salol tablets contained only about 11⁄3 (1.39) grain; some 5 grain sodium salicylate tablets contained less than half that amount (2.32 grain). In addition, the federal chemists found that some Elixir of Iron pyrophosphate Quinin and Strychnin (Elix. Ferr. Pyrophos. Quin. et Strych. N. F.) fell considerably below the standard of strength laid down by the National Formulary by having less than one-eighth the amount of quinin sulphate which the official standard calls for, and only about one-fifth the amount of sugar, saccharine, which is not a normal ingredient of the official preparation, having been substituted for part of the sugar. The chemists found, too, that some hydriodic acid sold by the same concern, instead of containing, as the label declared and as the United States Pharmacopeia requires, 1 per cent. of absolute hydriodic acid, contained less than one half of 1 per cent. The Direct Sales Company pleaded guilty in this case and was fined $700.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Sept. 27, 1919.)