A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THOSE PATENT MEDICINES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 15, 18 January 1905, Page 9

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THOSE PATENT MEDICINES.

By R. H. BAKEWELL, M.D.

I am writing this on a sick bed, having been laid up for a couple of days with a bad attack of bronchitis, accompanied by a very distressing cough. Now. there .is a species of cough lozenge, which I can remember for above 60 years, originally made by a druggist in St. Paul's Churchyard London, which I know and have experienced t-hc efficacy of. (That is a very awkward sentence, but I am too weak to correct or re-write it.) But, under the operation of that beautiful and benevolent law which was passed last session by Mr Scddon's obedient servants, the members of the General Assembly of New Zealand, I shall not be able to procure that lozenge after June next, so that before it comes into operation I must buy a stock for my own private use. It does seem uncommonly hard that a poor devil who is coughing his lungs up is not to have what he knows to be an effectual remedy, because Mr Seddon is a man of robust health, and, I suppose, until recently, has never had occasion to take medicine. Two or three years ago 1 made an appeal to him during the session in the columns of tho "New Zealand Times." where I feel sure he must have read it, and I appealed to him as a good-natured and kind-hearted man, as I then thought he was, not to tax the sick and dying by putting duties of 20 to 25 per cent, ad valorem on drugs and medicines. Many years ago, when England was still a Protectionist country, and was growing rich thereby, and by starving her operative classes, the Rev. Sydney Smith, one of the very few witty English writers, made an appeal of a similar kind. Enumerating the various articles that v.ere taxed, he mentioned the apothecary's drugs, and finished off by saying that the Englishman was buried in a taxed coffin. [ do not know whether coffins are taxed in New Zealand—probably not, if they arc of plain wood, but tbe nails, screws and ornaments arc taxed 20 per cent. We must have that surplus, you know. The appeal had no effect; the sick and flic dying have the gloomy satisfaction of knowing that the medicines they are taking have all contributed to till the voracious maw of the New Zealand Treasury. I observe that some of the principal retail chemists and druggists arc rather in favour of the new law. I suppose that (hey think they will be able to induce the public to buy their own preparations instead of the well-known proprietary or patent medicines. In this they are very much mistaken. It does not by any means follow that because a young lady has found Dr. Jones' Red Pills for Pale People efficacious in her own case she will, instead of taking them, buy Mr Rhubarb's Quinine and Iron Pills. There are a great many imitations of Dr. Collis Brown's chlorodyne. and many -of them arc, 1 dare say, as good as the original, but when 1 am advising a country settler always to keep a. bottle of chlorodyne in his house I impress upon him that it must be Collis Brown's. But do you think the chief health officer, who is the advise*' of this measure, and who if it ever comes into ' operation will have to fly the colony, iutends that the retail chemists shall have ail the profit of it ? If you do. I can only say, "O saneta simplicitas!"' The next thing will be an Act for preventing you from prescribing, and restricting you. under heavy penalties, from trespassing ou our proper domain. Do you know, but I suppose a good many of you do not. that in most civilised countries, except the United Kingdom and British colonies, no pharmaceutical chemist dares to supply medicines, except, on the prescription of a qualified physician or surgeon ? And this, my beloved brethren, is the most profitable part of your busness. Yet I dint think that there is anything more dangerous to tbe public health than this practice. The public, by a curious, and, to my mind, an unaccountable, fad, will go 'on taking patent medicines, or iuedi- . cines prescribed by a chemist, for months at a time, although deriving no benefit therefrom. Then, at last, they come to us. very oftpn with health irreparably damaged, and always with depleted purses. It is quite true that there ar. regularly qualified and registered medical men who are quite as dangerous to the public health as any prescribing chemist. But this is because they have had no clinical experience, and all their knowledge is theoretical. As long as Examining Boards neglect to take the candidates for diplomas to the bedsides of patients, and make them examine, diagnose, and prescribe for the patient, so long will vast numbers of incompetent men be launched into the profession, without that preliminary training in clinical practice which is absolutely necessary to make a man a really qualified practitioner. But the druggists have not even the theoretical knowledge which must be possessed by the most ignorant boy that ever obtained the L.F.P.S.G.. a diploma, that 1 would not condescend to hold if J were paid £100. The druggist has never dissected, has most probably never even been present at a post mortem examination, he knows very little of the normal action of the organs of the human body, and still less of their pathology. "He cannot anseulr the chest, and though some in this town have the impudence to make examinations of internal organs, tbev do it merely to impose on the ignorance and credulity of their dupes. It is quite possible that some of the American quack medicine makers will profess to comply with tbe provisions of the Act. Some of them even now by way of obtaining the faith of their customers in their disinterested generosity, profess to give a prescription eratis! "An elderly gentleman who has derived great benefit from a certain course of treatment after all other me:ins had failed will forward the prescription to any fellow sufferer on receipt of a stamped and addressed envelope. Address. Senex. Box. Io.TOS. Post Office, Chicago." You send your stamped envelope and by return you get a complicated formula of a ingredients which you fake to a chemist" to <ret made up. At a glance he s fPS what it is, and tells you that neither he nor any druggist i t , the town has half the ingredient':: that they are not to be found in any recognised oharmacepacia, nor are they known proprietary drugs, and that you must gat them from the per«on who sends the prc-cription. On examining the envelope containing the prescription you find a short notice to the effect that as sqpie of the drugs prescribed are very rare, it may be difficult to obtain them where you reside, but tbat you can have a sample bottle by forwarding to a certain drag company in Chicago a postal note for five dollars, or a

supply that will last you two month* for 25 dollars. Now, I have not the slightest hope that either experience or education, or the gradual growth of the intelligence of the people, will ever wean them from the use of quack medicines. I don't find that there has been any, improvement since my young days; in fact, I am sure that the population of New Zealand. Australia, and I am told the United States, swallow more patent medicines per head than the populations of Great Britain or the Continental nations. One reason of this may be that in England medicine may be had front a qualified medical practitioner much cheaper than any patent medicines are sold. Then, again, medical fees for advice or visits In all respectable general practices at Home include the ordinary, medicines. But there is a psychical element in this addiction to quack remedies. There is always a lingering faith in the efficacy of a remedy by the sale of which somebody must be profiting largely. Ne one can doubt that these medicines must do good to a large, percentage of the purchasers even in this way. Then, again, many of them contain powerful drugs which, if taken in the right cases, will effect a cure. And there lingers even in the minds of manj- of the older school of medical men an opinion that the discoverer of some quack remedy has hit upon a formula or combination, which acts better than any pharmacopoeia preparation. E.g.. I have often seen prescribed, and even prescribed myself— Pulvis Jaecbi verus—"the true James* powder." This was a powder containing a preparation of antimony ef uncertain chemical composition. The College of Physicians tried to supersede its us* by a formula of its own which was a preparation of antimony of a somewhat similar kind. But many physicians refused to order the orthodox pharmacopoeia preparation, and in spite of the by-laws of the college, which absolutely forbid the use of any secret preparation, persisted in ordering tbe true James' powder, which is sold. I believe, even at the present day. Fowler's Solution of Arsenic, a patent medicine, has bee« adopted in every pharmacopoeia iv the world.. Battley's Solution of Opium ia unquestionably superior to any pharmacopoeia preparation. The only objection to it is its enormous price. But. it is useless to go on multiplying instances. Every educated physician who has not imbibed the Trades Union principles of the British Medical Association and the General Medical Council, and looks upon his profession as something higher and nobler than any trade, will acknowledge whether we prescribe a remedy of which we know the exact chemical composition or not. we are for the most part prescribing drugs of whos* mode of action we know nothing except by experience. Medicine has not yet reached the position of an exact science. The fact is, that the efficacy of * particular drug depends in nine cases out of ten on the state of mind of the pei-son who uses it. If that persot* believes in it then the drug will be efficacious: if not. it will do no good, but probably harm. The faith cure ia everything. A Ponsonby-road, January 13, 1905. p.g. Tbe above was written before the news came that the representatives of two hundred proprietors of patent medicines had interviewed our AgentGeneral. That must have been a curious meeting at which two hundred plausible proprietors of patent medicines elected their representatives.