QUAKERY PREVENTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 182, 31 July 1908, Page 3

QUAKERY PREVENTION.

, INJURIOUS MEDICAL COMPOUNDS. PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE. 1 (By Reporter.) ' WELLINGTON, Thursday. In the House of Representatives this afternoon Mr Hornsby moved the 'second ; reading of his Quackery Prevention , Bill, which provides that it shall be unlawful to advertise or supply any pre- ■ paration, medicine or appliance alleged to be for prevention or cure of any human ailment that is declared by a Supreme Court judge on the application of the chief health officer to be harmful to health or of a fraudulent nature. The member for Wairarapa said that, so great was the gullibilty of people that a man only needed means enough to advertise a medicine to ensure its sale. Some years age there was a man who used to advertise, "I cure consumption." That man's advertisement now appears only in magazines and a few religious journals. The name had been hounded out of America and other countries, and he was now carrying on in Australia, where he had recently been exposed. The only way of preventing these frauds being worked upon a gullible public was to stop indiscreet advertising. The member for Wairarapa went on to refer to the question of infantile mortality. He said there were '. hundreds of babies killed by so-called soothing syrups. There was need for protection being afforded to those innocent women who bought these patent foods, and unknowingly gave them to , their chfldren. He urged that the bill under consideration provided the necessary protection in the interests of the public. Mr Flatman said that his only objection to the bill was that it placed too much power in the hands of the Public Health Department. Dr Chappie said that New Zealand owed a debt of gratitude to tho Press of the country for having taken unanimous action in the suppression of advertisements likely to be injurious to the young people of the Dominion. No one but a medical man knew just how great the good was ensuing from that decision of the Press. Speaking of the , suppression of quackery, Dr Chappie said ' that nothing brought more grist to tho medical mill than the practice of quackery. They knew what the policy of the quack was. First of all. men and wo- ! men were frightened and deluded into , the belief that they must seek quack i relief, and very often young people had ! their nervous systems ruined as a result ' of following quack treatment. He quo- j ted one instance in which a young man 1 I who had been in consultation with one j of these charlatans and tricksters had i been robbed and frightened into the be- 1 lief that he was on the border of insan- ' ity. There was an art in the prepara- . tion of quack advertisements, and they * were calculated to simply enrich the ad- I vertisers. He quoted the advertise- j ment referring to tho curative property , of a certain medicinal wine, advertised i to be appetising and beneficial to cbil- 1 dren. This claim, he said, was a vile j aud pernicious lie. The wine in ques- i tion was designed to taste nice, and ' the- reason wbv it was attractive was ] because it contained alcohol, and had the , pernicious effect of creating a 'craving. ( This, laid the foundation to dipsomania ' He most-hfjartily supported -th* bill. \ Mr G. Wilford took up the stand that ) there were certain patent medicines i which he believed that the Government ' had no right to debar from the use of J poor 'people. He would support the bill, T but hoped that when it went to the com- ' mittee there would be an amendment to embrace the proposal he had made. i Other members of the House spoke in i favour of the proposal, and the bill passed its second reading unanimously. ,