The act of Congress, approved 26th of June, 1848, entitled “an Act to prevent the importation of spurious and adulterated drugs and medicines,” having now been in existence and enforcement almost three years, the working of the law and its effects, immediate and remote, have become necessarily matters of fact, and are no longer left to conjecture and speculation.
At the time of the passage of this law by congress, no inconsiderable fears were entertained by its friends, and great hopes by its enemies, that it would be found impracticable to carry out its requisite provisions without great injury to that portion of our citizens engaged in the importation of this class of merchandize, in which event its repeal would, of course, have been urgently solicited.[23]
[23] Strong prima facie evidence of the popularity of this law may be found in this significant fact that not a petition for its repeal has ever been presented to Congress.
In entering upon the duties of the commission, which I had the honor to recieve from the department, I was fully impressed with the importance of the information sought for, and the necessity of a candid, impartial and unbiassed examination of facts bearing upon the subject, and in making, to the department, this report, I have divided my results and facts into immediate and remote; the reasons for which, will appear in the detail. Under the general terms drugs and medicines, are embraced all articles intended for the treatment of the diseases of the human system, and though they admit of many subdivisions, these terms, included under the two heads of chemicals and compounds, and crude drugs, are all that is necessary for my {265} purpose in speaking of the effects and applications of the law.
First, with regard to the effect upon chemicals and compound medicines.: Previous to the passage of this law, no restriction was laid upon any class of medicines coming in under this head. If the importer paid the requisite duty, no questions were asked, no limit was fixed as to quality or condition. It needs no argument, but merely a mention of the fact, to show that any compound medicine or chemical preparation may be so made as to deceive the unsuspecting and uneducated, and even very often the druggist, apothecary, physician, and all, because they were not in the habit of analysing their articles, and were deceived by their external, often times very fine appearance. Under the combined influence of competition and avarice—two strong temptations, the manufacture of articles of this class had become systematised, and on purpose to supply the United States market.
The immediate and positive beneficial results of the law may be seen in the fact that now very few, if indeed any, spurious or sophisticated chemical preparations, for pharmaceutical purposes, are even offered at our ports, or by any possibility find their way into our markets. Manufacturing chemists and importers of this description of medicines, finding it impossible to get such goods through our custom houses, will, of course, not risk the loss of bringing them here, but in their stead will import such as are known to come up to our required standards. Under this general head of chemicals, may be included a large majority of the manufactured and compound medicines used in practice by the medical faculty, and all the most important usually purchased by others for domestic uses, more especially in the great west and south, where every man, almost, is obliged to learn the uses and doses of calomel, blue mass and quinine, &c. The certainty of purity in these articles alone, is a matter of no small moment to the community at large; of the probabilities of their home adulteration I shall also refer to elsewhere.
A few articles of this class may now and then, either through {266} culpable negligence on the part of the inspector, or by being entered under a false name, be imported, but they must be few, and are daily growing less. An instance of this kind has occurred in New York, where a large lot of sulphate of lime was offered in market, under the name of precipitated chalk. The New York College of Pharmacy, standing very properly as the guardians of the public health, and protectors of this act, for which they had petitioned and which they had agreed to support, by committee, reported the fact, and warned the holders of the consequences of continuing to sell the article as a medicinal preparation, upon which they very readily withdrew it. How it came into the city that committee have never been able to ascertain, whether imported under the head of plaster of Paris, and thus escaping the eye of the inspector, or whether passed by him, or at some other port, without due test and examination, I am not able to say. That it was imported under a false name, is, to my mind, the most likely of all.
If our Colleges of Pharmacy in the different cities, as I have no doubt they will, continue to thus watch the articles offered them and the public, and act with the independence that has characterised them thus far, no deception of this kind will go long unexposed, and it will soon cease altogether.
No manufactured article, susceptible of adulteration, ought ever to be suffered to pass by the Examiner of drugs without being sampled and tested by analysis, and no matter what its appearances, or what its label; neither the one or the other are guarantees of its purity, for both may alike be counterfeits. The more popular the maker, the higher his name and reputation, the more likely his name, label, bottle and article to be counterfeited, as has Pelletier’s name to the article quinine, others to iodide of potassium, &c. &c.
Secondly. The effects of the law upon crude drugs and medicines, such as leaves, barks, roots, gums, gum resins, &c. Upon these articles, the effect has been the same as upon chemicals and compound goods. Greater variations must of, course occur in their qualities, as many of them cannot be {267} tested with accuracy; and of the rest, very imperfect standards are to be found in any of the works on pharmacy or materia medica now extant. This was heretofore left entirely in the hands of the examiner at each port, who has been obliged to fix his own standards when there were none laid down in the works referred to in the instructions of the department. Such has been the case with many of our most valuable and important articles of crude drugs, gums, and gum resins,—such as opium, scammony, &c. Such also has been the case with many of the roots and barks, as rhubarb and the cinchona and all its varieties. One may have fixed upon five per cent. of morphine, and another upon eight, another ten, as the standard for opium. Again, the same might occur in admitting or rejecting scammony. One requiring sixty or seventy per cent. of resin, another admitting or rejecting, merely from the physical appearance of the article.