Drug Medication and Adulterants
Drugs are bad enough. Their influence is enervating, deteriorating, enfeebling. But drugs adulterated are often worse. One of the great fever preventives, antipyretic, is phenacetin. It is sold everywhere almost without a physician's prescription. But the health department of New York purchased 373 samples recently from well-known drug stores in old New York and Brooklyn. Of these 315 were adulterated. Of these, 307 contained acetanilid, a “most dangerous drug.” “It is a heart depressant, and is a menace to health, if not to life, especially in cases of persons whose heart action is abnormal.” In the selling of phenacetin the profit was over 200 per cent, the wholesale price of which is one dollar an ounce. But much more could be made from the sale of acetanilid, the wholesale price of which is but twenty-five cents a pound. Thirty-two of these samples were pure acetanilid. God never designed that man should be a filter for drugs or patent nostrums. He does not need them. He rarely needs medicine of any kind.