The Star. TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1905. PATENT MEDICINES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8317, 16 May 1905, Page 2

The Star. TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1905. PATENT MEDICINES.

The manufacturing chemists of Sydney have followed the example of their London contemporaries in protesting against the New Zealand Government's patent medicine regula-. tions. They object to disclosing the formula of their medicines to the officiak of the Health Department on the gityßmd that they would quickly become public property. Their suspicion is not very creditable to their common- , sense. They must know that the formulce of their .medicines would be just as safe in the hands of the Health Department as with themselves. The officials to whom the formulae were disclosed would be under a pledge of secrecy, and by breaking their pledge would court instant dismissal and punishment. The patent medicine proprietors may talk as they like about the injury they will : suffer, and may continue to ; threaten that they will withdraw their trade from New Zealand, but they will have I some difficulty in convincing the public I that they are being badly treated- We hope the Government will take no notice of their outcry. Its regulation is a sensible precaution designed to protect the public, and it would be a mistake to withdraw it in response to the clamour of a small body of interested people. That it will have the effect of lessening the amount of business done in proprietary medicines of the right sort we do not for a moment believe. As a matter of fact it is calcu•lated to have exactly the opposite effect. Large as the amount of business is that is done in New Zealand, it i would be much larger if the public J were only satisfied that every patent nostrum sold in the colony was free from harmful matter. The proprietors of nocuous compounds will suffer, of course. Their medicines I will be excluded, and very properly so. In these circumstances the objections of the proprietors seem impolitic. They give rise to the suspicion that some of the medicines, at any rate, will not pass the examination, and that the proprietors themselves are aware of the fact. We do not say that this is actually the case, but merely desire to wai;n the proprietors that their protests are in danger of being misinterpreted.