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.)
DISCOVERIES AND DISCOVERERS
In spite of the wonderful achievements of modern science, it seems impossible to get the public to think in scientific terms. This is doubtless due to a fundamental weakness in our educational system. The tendency still is to think in terms of the eighteenth century rather than of the twentieth. Many times The Journal has been chided, even by its friends, for failing to take seriously preposterous claims made for alleged discoveries in medicine by well-meaning but self-deluded enthusiasts or by shrewd and conscienceless charlatans. Far too often the attitude is that any alleged discovery in medicine, no matter how bizarre or how humanly improbable, should be taken up in all seriousness and subjected to the tests of modern laboratory methods. It was only a few years ago that a quack of unsavory antecedents brought forth an alleged cure for consumption—a disease that for years has been the subject of study by the best brains in the world—and a medical college spent thousands of dollars “investigating” the “cure,” thereby giving it a standing that it would never have received otherwise and incidentally obtaining for the school an amount of publicity that may or may not have been desired. As The Journal said at the time, it would have been just as pertinent for a body of astronomers to determine by scientific methods whether or not the moon is really made of green cheese.
The point we would make is that the strides made by modern science have practically eliminated the possibility of men without training or special knowledge evolving any epoch-making discovery. In this connection an editorial in the Scientific American of recent date, dealing with the mechanical sciences rather than the medical, is well worth quoting in part. The editorial discussed the “Garabed” incident. “Garabed,” as Our readers know, was a name given to a device which one Garabed T. K. Giragossian claimed to have developed and which, so far as could be learned from the generalities in which Mr. Giragossian indulged, would take energy out of the cosmos and transfer it directly into mechanical motion. Mr. Giragossian would give no details regarding his “engine,” but was so able to hypnotize Congress into a belief that he had something worth looking into that it passed a joint resolution calling for the appointment of five scientists to pass on the claims for Garabed. The investigation proved, as might have been expected, that the thing was unsound in principle and nonoperative as a device.
The methods by which Garabed was brought before the public savored strongly of those used by quacks in the medical world, the one difference being that Giragossian was apparently perfectly sincere and unequivocally honest. The point that we bring out, however, and which, as we have said before, was so well expressed by the Scientific American, is the utter futility of wasting the time of scientific men on alleged inventions or discoveries by men without training who substitute secrecy and glittering generalities for facts and accomplishments. Quoting the Scientific American:
Scientific discovery, once an open field for all comers, is today becoming more and more a matter calling for the most intensive special qualifications. As the body of human knowledge broadens and deepens, it becomes increasingly difficult to make any material addition to it. Any one undertaking such a task must of necessity bring to it a long and careful training, acquired either in the refined atmosphere of the laboratory, or in the rougher school of close contact with the operation of apparatus constructed by those who have already qualified. In particular, he must possess a carefully developed power of making accurate observations and drawing correct conclusions. It is rather the habit to point to men like Edison and Maxim in refutation of these necessities; but they are not to be so refuted. These men are examples, raised to the nth power, of the great inventor who has qualified in the University of Hard Knocks and Long Experience.
On these grounds, when a man comes before us in the self-assigned rôle of a great inventor, it is incumbent upon him to answer, not necessarily the bald question “Who are you?” but certainly the more searching one, “What are your qualifications to undertake this work?” Only by his answer can we decide whether he possesses a competence deserving of attention, or is but a dilettante playing with fire. Yet this obligation was one which Mr. Giragossian, far from meeting, did not even appear to comprehend. To every effort to ascertain his qualifications he replied in the same terms, that he was an honest man, and could prove it by letters from his technically nondescript collection of friends and sponsors. The very fact that more than personal integrity is necessary in a man who would unravel the secrets of the creation of energy appears to have escaped his comprehension.
The fundamentals thus stated apply with equal force to the sphere of medical discovery. At the time when medicine was pure empiricism it was not only possible but also probable that the medicinal value of certain products or combinations of products might be stumbled on by those untrained and unskilled. That time has passed. Today, while it is not impossible, it is so improbable that there is no justification in taking up the time of scientific men in investigating alleged discoveries by men who are utterly lacking in the fundamental qualifications needed for the study of the complex problems of human pathology.—(Editorial from The Journal A. M. A., Aug. 10, 1918.)