The number of persons in the community who are really able to judge such preparations is wofully small and it will require a constant campaign of education for many years to bring the every-day consumer of preparations of this class to a sense of his personal responsibility in such matters.
Even the medical profession has suffered by this gigantic bunco game.
Antikamnia, a proprietary preparation which was advertised for years under the claim that it was a definite synthetic compound, in spite of the fact that every one who knew anything about organic chemistry knew better, has at last been publicly unmasked as a mixture of acetanilide, caffeine and sodium bicarbonate; and in refuge from the necessity of declaring the amount of acetanilide upon the label, the firm which makes it has changed the formula so as to substitute phenacetine for acetanilide, and yet the same unwarranted and extravagant claims are made for the preparation that were made before, with no notice to the medical profession that a radical change has been made in its composition, and entirely ignoring the stultification of the former claims as a definite uniform chemical compound.
Other instances might be cited, but enough has been said, I think, to show you that the effect of the law is being felt by those who have made themselves amenable to it.
One important feature must be remembered. It is this: On every package of foodstuff or drug put up under the new law, the words “Guaranteed under the U. S. Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1906, Serial No. ——” appears. This is being used in such a way as to make it appear that the Government in some unknown way stands sponsor for the quality of the substance, when in truth it is but a compliance with that part of the Act, Sec. 9, which says:—
“No dealer shall be prosecuted under the provisions of this act when he can establish a guarantee signed by the wholesaler, jobber, manufacturer, or other party residing in the United States, from whom he purchases such article, to the effect that the same is not adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this act designating it.”
Thus it will be seen that the guaranty means nothing more than the word of the manufacturer that he will be responsible in case of prosecution, and I fear that not a few of the guarantees at present published are given without due regard to facts, in the hope that the Department of Agriculture, with the tremendous task confronting it of putting the rules and regulations into practice, may be a long while reaching some of these articles.
Meanwhile many persons will be deluded into purchasing such articles in the belief that the phrase referred to is evidence that the Government is responsible for the claims made, when in point of fact nothing of the kind is meant.
An instance recently coming to my attention, presumably of this kind, is that of an article which is being advertised in the prominent daily newspapers in the form of reading notices (a most reprehensible form of advertising) as a remedy for consumption and bronchial affections. An examination of the substance shows it to be a fictitious product containing oil of turpentine, gum turpentine, with evident traces of copaiba and sandalwood. It bears a label which indicates a somewhat mixed origin, as two widely differing plants of the pine family are included in the botanical name which is given for it.
In the regulation of the narcotic drugs, such as opium and its derivatives, morphine, cocaine, etc., a wonderful step has been taken. If the public could realize the harm that has been done to persons who have unconsciously formed drug habits by taking proprietary catarrh cures there would be universal amazement at the depths of degradation to which a manufacturer will lower himself in order to increase the profit on an article by stimulating an increase in its sale. Instances have come before the authorities at Washington in which manufacturers have frankly admitted that they had added morphine or cocaine to their nostrums in order that their continued use might be assured.