“I look back in retrospect and have not a little fun over my ‘monkey diet’ days.”
Who shall say that ten years hence Mr. Sinclair may not be able to look back, good humoredly, in retrospect, to another time when he was “monkeying” with a subject that was beyond his ken?—(From The Journal A. M. A., April 29, 1922.)
ACETYLSALICYLIC ACID, NOT ASPIRIN
The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry publishes a report in this issue giving its reasons for deleting “Aspirin-Bayer” from New and Nonofficial Remedies. In order that a standard may be provided, the drug acetylsalicylic is retained[259] in N. N. R. under its scientific name, acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin appearing as a synonym. The attempt on the part of the Bayer Company to perpetuate the monopoly it has had for seventeen years in the United States was briefly discussed editorially in The Journal, Aug. 12, 1916. We quoted from Printers’ Ink, a magazine devoted to advertising, in part as follows:
“The manufacturers of aspirin are about to launch an extensive advertising campaign to clinch the market as far as possible before the expiration of their patent rights next year.... The purpose of the campaign is to identify the product with the trademark of the Bayer Company and to this extent hamper competition after the expiration of the patent.”
It is worth while reminding physicians of the privileges the Bayer Company has enjoyed for so many years, owing largely to our inequitable and crude patent laws, or to their construction. First, it should be remembered that practically no other country in the world, not even the original home of the preparation, would grant a patent on either acetylsalicylic acid, the product, or on the process for making that product. The United States granted both! As a result, for seventeen years it has been impossible in this country for anybody except the Bayer Company to manufacture or sell acetylsalicylic acid, either under its chemical name or under any other name. Neither was it possible for individuals, hospitals or any other institutions to import it, legally, for their own use.
Needless to say, the American people have been made to pay exorbitantly for the monopoly our patent office granted this firm. Three or four years ago The Journal, through the American consuls, obtained information regarding the price at which acetylsalicylic acid was sold in foreign countries. At that time, acetylsalicylic acid, as “aspirin,” was costing American druggists—and of course the American public had to pay still more for it—43 cents an ounce. Just across the border in Canada it sold for one-third the price asked here. In some of the foreign countries, acetylsalicylic acid under its scientific name could be purchased by the druggists of those countries at from one-sixth to less than one-tenth the price that it cost American druggists. Here are some of the figures:
Austria-Hungary | 4 cents an ounce | Holland | 4 cents an ounce |
British Isles | 6 cents an ounce | Norway | 4 cents an ounce |
Denmark | 4 cents an ounce | Sweden | 4 cents an ounce |
France | 4 cents an ounce | United States | 43 cents an ounce |
Germany | 4 cents an ounce |
Not content with the iron-bound monopoly which it had been granted through our patent laws, the company attempted further to clinch its exclusive rights by giving the preparation a fancy name, “aspirin,” and getting a trademark on this name. The patent on acetylsalicylic acid expires next month (February, 1917). After its expiration the product, and its method of manufacture, become common property. American manufacturers will now be able to do what manufacturers in other countries, other than the patentees, have long been doing—make and sell acetylsalicylic acid.[260]