THE QUACKERY PREVENTION BILL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 198, 19 August 1908, Page 6

THE QUACKERY PREVENTION BILL.

[ (By ROBT. H. BAKEWELL, MJ3.) I ~~ > I suppose that I should hardly have I been able to refrain from adding my 1 humble mite to the enormous amount i of flap-doodle which has been written about the American fleet, had not the . 10th number of "Hansard" come to hand • yesterday, containing a report of the ' debate on Mr. Hornsby's Quackery Pre- '_ vention Bill. And here I must make a . complaint about the very imperfect and ' inefficient way in which the telegrams ' about the debates in Parliament are sent out by the Press Association. Year I after year I find these reports more i imperfect, and I assert, without hesitai tion, that they entirely fail to do justice ; to our legislators. There is no doubt much repetition in the speeches, and at i times some members talk great nonsense, ' but I can truthfully say that I have derived much valuable information from : the perusal of the reports in "Hansard," which I should have lost had I confined myself to the scrappy telegrams of the Press Association. Some kind person, who knows my poverty, has placed mc on the free list for "Hansard." Will he accept my thanks? Mr. Hornsby's bill is entitled "The Quackery Prevention Bill." This is rather too wide a title. The bill deals only with medical or surgical quackeries. There are a good many other quackeries besides these, and even of medical quackeries there are many with which ! the bill does not deal. | With regard to one class of quacks ! who prey on the mental weakness of young men especially, and partly by their enormous charges for what they call cures, and partly by sheer blackmail, have ruined (hundreds »f men, have driven others insane, and have been the cause of unnumbered suicides—with these wretches, whom the Prime Minister rightly characterised as worse than murderers, Mr. Hornsby himself admits that it is almost impossible for legislation to deal. The persona who are their victims were originally weak in mind, and probably weak in body also, and have made themselves worse by their own malpractices. Then they see the advertisements, which are cunningly devised to catch them, and write for advice or a pamphlet In return they get an elaborate form to fill up, in which they have to give every particular as to their social position, their health, their pecuniary means, and all their real or imaginary symptoms. Every indiscretion of their youth has to be fully described, j and when this has been done and posted ! the unfortunate man is ai, the mercy of the most cruel and unscrupulous scoundrels the world can produce. Many an hour have I spent over these unfortunate youths, and even men of middle age, trying to convince them that the symptoms they suffered from were such as are common to dozens of diseases, ana might easily be removed by hygienic measures, without any drug treatment, but in vain. The terrible results predicted in the infamous publications of the quacks have generally such a hold on the diseased imagination of the victim that all reasoning and argument are vain. Even the last argument which I always use, I can see often fails to have any effect. It is this: "What interest can I have in dismissing you, and telling you that you need no drug treatment, and that if you take my advice you need never come to mc again? Am I not more likely to be telling you the truth than these men who say that you will require months of treatment, and I must pay them from five to twenty ; pounds at once?" It is of very little use. I can see the harassed, doubtful look on their faces; they are doomed to he victims, j On these quacks I would have no ■ mercy. They ought to be hanged, but as there is no chance <lf that, at least long terms of imprisonment should be inflicted on them. But there i s another class of quackeries, with which Mr. Hornsby proposes to deal through the medium of Dr. Poobah—l mean, the Chief Medical Officer of the e.olnnv shn has o« ™-~.„ *„_„

ons and so many duties to perform, that .c ought to be a complete master of „he "Encyclopaedia Britamnica, 10th edition, in 38 volumes, to perform them aright. Mr. Hornsby, to quote his own words, states that 'his bill provides "that as soon as a noxious drug, or some kind of cure-all, is advertised in the daily newspapers, immediately the advertisement appears—as is done now, in fact—the Chief Medical Officer makes such inquiry into the ingredients, and makes such examination into the contents of that medicine, as he is enabled to do by analysis. (Sic) | Mr. Hornsby himself admits that his ; bill requires some amendments, and, inj deed, appeals to • his legal colleagues to ! help him to make it more efficient. This quotation proves that Mr. Hornsby is quite right. The first thought that naturally suggests itself is, who is likely to advertise "a noxious drug"? And, again, why may it be advertised, apparently with impunity in weekly newspapers or magazines, but not in daily papers? Then, again, it is a well established maxim of English law that a man is to be held as innocant until he is proved to be guilty; but the bill reverses the process; anyone who is thought by the Chief Medical Officer to be guilty of selling a "noxious drug," or a "curei all," must prove his own innocence. I certainly should not like to fall under the tender mercies of Dr. Mason. Besides, who ever advertises a noxious drug, as such, or a cure-all? The Chief Medical Officer has to "hale" the supposed culprit before a judge of the Supreme Court, who is apparently to act without a jury. The word "nale ' is Scriptural, but I don't remember its use in English law proceedings. Is Dr. Mason ■to handcuff the man, and drag him off bodily before the judge ? Or, ig he to take out a summons, or a warrant for his apprehension? If so, it would be better to use the ordinary legal term familiar to everybody than an obsolete locution like "hale." Again, Mr. Hornsby asserts that his bill will prevent the article condemned being either advertised or sold. The order of a Supreme Court judge may prevent advertisements from appearing, if the bill imposes a sufficient penalty for disobedience to the order; but it will be quite impossible to prevent the drug from being sold, if it gets a reputation and becomes popular. Let us take, for example, chlorodyne, which Mr. Hornsby says is "destroying a number of people in this country." 1 have been in the constant habit of giving or prescribing chlorodyne ever since Dr. Collis Browne first advertised it. I think it is one of the most useful compounds in the British Pharmacopoeia—for it is, and has been for many years, in the official pharmacopoeia, published by the authority of the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom. Yet Mr. Hornsby denounces it as a "dangerous poison," and speaks of its "demoralising effects." Of course, if you take enough of it, it is a poison, and so is sulphuric or nitric acid, and yet we give these acids daily, with great benefit in proper cases. Nitromuriatic acid, which will dissolve any metal, even gold, is an invaluable remedy for the enlargement of the liver that occurs in tropical climates. I have taken it myself, so I know. And yet it is a most powerful caustic. If you put jour foot into a quart of it, that foot will be of no further use to you; but if you bathe your feet in it properly diluted, twice a day, you will find it most efficacious. The ig/ct is that fools run away with the idea that nothing i s to be used as an exception in small doses that may not be swallowed with impunity by the pint or the pound. Why, I have seen a man die from a drink of cold water. I have seen another who barely escaped, after three days' agony, from drinking a large ' draught of cold milk. I have seen an- I other man nearly die from drinking port wine as a draught. But does any sane I person consider these articles as poisons? I But it may be said, may not persons who take a little chlorodyne to stop a troublesome cough, or allay a severe pain, acquire a chlorodyne habit, as people acquire a morphia habit, or a cocaine habit, or a chloral habit? Well, they may, although I have never seen any of my patients who have so abused chlorodyne, and I have been recommending that a small bottle should be kept in every house where there is a family, for, I suppose.,, forty years. There' is always a copious, I may say, a superabundant, supply of fools in the world, and it is aricngst these fools that are to be found the persons who abuse in-

stead of using narcotic drugs, alcoholic drinks, tea, meat, and tobacco. You cannot eliminate fools; there are too many of them. St. Paul must have been a most amiable man, for it is said that "he could suffer fools gladly." I have had all my professional life "to suffer much from fools, but not gladly. Before chlorodyne was invented—and its invention is a curious story, too long to be repeated here—people used to employ laudanum, and a curious compound called "paregoric elixir," or paregoric, for short. This was, and is, a pharmacopoeia preparation, which contains a grain of solid opium to the halfounce, together with a little camphor, benzoic acid, and oil of.. anise. These ingredients form an extremely nasty ! compound, which, however, used to have j great repute as a remedy for coughs, | "windy colic" in babies, and other painf ful maladies. It used to be a domes- | tic remedy in constant use; every draggist in a populous neighbourhood would sell hundreds of doses of it every month. There used to be no necessity for signing poison books, or bringing a witI ness to the sale. If Mr Hornsby, or any j other of our legislators thinks that by any legislation the wit of man can devise, he can prevent the women from buying any quack remedy, or any noxious drug that they think they would like to have, I can only exclaim, "O sancta simplicitas!" For the last sixty years to my own personal knowledge, medical men have been all trying their utmost to persuade the despots of the nurscrv that fresh, pure air is better than foiil ' air, even if the former is cold and the | latter warm, and that the Creator know?! I better than they do what is the most suitable and nutritious food for infants, and could have added starch to milk if he had thought it suitable, but I cannot see that our preachings have had the slightest effect. If, with my sixty years' experience, I were to attempt to put myself in competition with an ignorant woman, who had been the mother of a family, but knew no more about the processes of digestion than she did j about the differential calculus, I should j not have the slightest chance. The mo | ment my back was turned, my order would be disobeyed, and the old lady's ! advice taken. No; it is not of the slightest use try 1 ing to combat the ordinary quackeries— the liver pills, the pills for pale blue people, the tonic remedies, the cough mixtures, or the consumption cures, by legislation. Even education will do nothing. I have known Battley's Liquor Opii Sed (a preparation of opium) prescribed in a London hospital of the first class by a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Yet he did not know how it was made, or what proportion of morphine or other active ingredients it contained. And every other physician or surgeon used it, although it cost about four times as much as laudanum. In the same hospital one of the surgeons ordered Hollo, way's ointment for a case, because the patient said it had done him more good than anything else. I never 'lay mc down to sleep" (as the hymn says) without a box of Himrod's powder, and a pipe and matches within reach of my hand. You must make allowance for the fools: I don't see the use of them, but here they are, and we cannot well kill them. If they like to kill themselves, why make such a fuss about it? Arthur-street, Onehunga, Aug. 16.