A High Impeachment of Patent Medicines
PROFESSOR H. W. WILEY, chief of the Division of Chemistry in the Department of Agriculture, in a paper read before the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, said: “The formula of the patent medicine ought to be on the label of the bottle. The alcohol habit and the cocaine habit have been caused by the use of patent medicines. Many patent medicines have ingredients that should be sold only under their own names.” He illustrated it by saying that in Jamaica ginger and bay rum methyl alcohol is often substituted for ethyl alcohol, and is a very dangerous adulteration. Dr. Wiley stated that he personally knew of a case wherein the substitution in Jamaica ginger of methyl alcohol for the proper ethyl alcohol had caused a resident of Boston to lose his eyesight, and in the case of bay rum, where methyl alcohol was put in instead of ethyl, it made the preparation likely to cause atrophy and paralysis of the optic nerve, which is an incurable affection. He informed the society that last year Congress authorized the department to start a systematic investigation of drug impurities, as it had tested foods for fifteen years, but no laboratory had been provided. However, with this month they are to begin to do as much as they can, using the department’s other laboratories. Physicians present said that so many drugs are adulterated or inert that many of them simply give as prescriptions a few fundamental remedies, leaving their patients to do as they please about tonics and stimulants.—The Christian Advocate.