PATENT MEDICINES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 201, 4 May 1912, Page 8

PATENT MEDICINES

A ROUND DENUNCIATION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, Thursday. In an address to the members of the Philosophical Society, Mr. A. M. Wright, discussing the subject of the chemist and his relations to the community, referred at some length to patent medicines, which met with short shrift at his hands. He stated roundly that not one patent medicine on the market and he knew the formula of most of them—deserved its reputation. He assured his hearers that one much-adver-tised remedy consisted of 9G ] / 2 parts of water. A certain elixir had been ascertained to be a mixture of sulphate of iron and Epsom salts, which the speaker characterised as an edifying mixture of faith and works. The remedy for this state of tilings, Mr. Wright'held, was i the creation, by means of school education in the first place, of a public opinion firmly opposed to quackery, and determined to class all tampering with the food of the community among criminal offences. Why did we test and analyse our coal and neglect the food we ate? Tf chemical analysis of our food were I insisted on there would be less ineffi- J ciency, less sickness, and less mortality { in the community.