Patent Medicines 1 THE term patent medicine" is loosely used to designate all remedies of a secret, non-secret, or proprietary character, which are widely advertised to the public. This use of the name is erroneous, and it is better first to understand the exact difference between the different classes of medicines generally comprised under this heading. Only in this way can one comprehend their right and wrong use. A Patent Medicine is a remedy which is patented. In order to secure this patent, an exact statement of the ingredients and the mode of manufacture must be filed with the government. These true "patent medicines " are generally artificial products of chemical manufacture, such as phenacetin. The very fact of their being patented makes them non-secret, and if an intelligent idea is held of their nature and mode of action, they may be properly used. Physicians with a full knowledge of their uses, limitations, and dangers often, and legitimately, prescribe them, and thus used they are 1 The publishers announce this chapter as prepared independent of Dr. Winslow or any of the Advising Editors. Considered as an effort to give helpful information, free of advertising on the one hand and sensational exposures on the other, the article meets with the approval of conservative physicians. But the problems dealt with are too involved at present for discussion direct from the profession to the public. the safest and most useful of all drugs and compounds of this class. A Nostrum.-The Century Dictionary defines a nostrum as "a medicine the ingredients of which, and the methods of compounding them, are kept secret for the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor." Some nostrums have stated, on their label, the names of their ingredients, but not the amount. There has been no restriction upon their manufacture or sale in this country, therefore the user has only the manufacturer's statement as to the nature of the medicine and its uses, and these statements, in many instances, have been proved utterly false and unreliable. A Proprietary Medicine is a non-secret compound which is marketed under the maker's name. This is usually done because the manufacturer ciaims some particular merit in his product and its mode of preparation, and as these drugs are perfectly ethical and largely used by physicians, it is to the maker's interest to maintain his reputation for the purity and accuracy of the drug. Familiar instances of this class are: Squibb's Ether and Chloroform, and Powers & Weightman's Quinine. From the above definition it may be seen that the only unreliable medicines are those which are, in reality, nostrums. In regard to all of these medicines the following rules should be observed: First.-Don't use any remedy that does not show its formula on the label. Second.-No matter what your confidence in the medicine, or how highly recommended it is, consult a physician before using very much of it. Third. Take no medicine internally without a physician's advice. Throughout this chapter the word "patent medicine" will be used in its widely accepted form, in the everyday sense, without regard to its legal definition, and will be held to include any of the above-mentioned classes, unless a direct statement is made to the contrary. In Germany the contents of patent medicines are commonly published, and in this country, notably in Massachusetts, the State Boards of Health are analyzing these preparations, and making public their findings. In North Dakota a law has been passed which requires that a proprietary medicine containing over five per cent of alcohol, or any one of a number of specified drugs, be labeled accordingly. PURE FOOD BILL.-A far-reaching and important step, in the movement for reform of patent medicines and for the protection of the public, has now been taken by the United States Government. On June 30, 1906, an act was approved forbidding the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated, misbranded, or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, or liquors. This act regulates interstate commerce in these articles, and went into effect January 1, 1907. Section 7 of this act states: "That for the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be adulterated: in case of drugs: "First. If, when a drug is sold under or by a name recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity, as determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary official at the time of investigation; Provided, that no drug defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary shall be deemed to be adulterated under this provision if the standard of strength, quality, or purity be plainly stated upon the bottle, box or other container thereof although the standard may differ from that determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary. "Second. If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard or quality under which it is sold." Section 8 states that a drug shall be deemed misbranded. "First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name of another article. "Second. If it (the package, bottle or box) fails to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilid, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein." What are the motives which impel persons to buy and use patent medicines? The history of medicine offers a partial explanation. In somewhat remote times we find that the medicines in use by regular physicians were of the most vile, nauseating, and powerful nature. We read of "purging gently" with a teaspoonful of calomel. Then during the wonderful progress of scientific medicine, beginning a little more than a half century ago, the most illustrious and use ful workers were so busily engaged in finding the causes of disease and the changes wrought in the various organs, in observing the noticeable symptoms and in classifying and diagnosticating them, that treatment was given but scant attention. This was nowhere more noticeable than in Germany, the birthplace, home, and world-center of scientific medicine, to which all the medical profession flocked. Patients became simply material which could be watched and studied. This was an exemplary spirit, but did not suit the patients who wanted to be treated and cured. This fact, together with the peculiar wording of the laws regulating the practice of medicine, which allow anyone with the exception of graduates to treat patients, but not to prescribe or operate upon them, accounts for the number of quacks in Germany. Dr. Jacobi states that "there is one quack doctor to every two regular physicians in Saxony and Bavaria." 1 Another cause for the use of patent medicines is mysticism. Ignorance is the mother of credulity. It is reported 2 that Cato, the elder, recommended cabbages as a panacea for all sorts of ills, that he treated dislocations of the limbs by incantations, and ordered the Greek physicians out of Rome. The ignorant are greatly influenced by things that they cannot understand. Therefore, as the mass of people are utterly ignorant of the changes in structure and function of 1Jacobi, Jour. Am. Med. Assn., Sept. 29, 1906, • Ibid. |