82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



question came up in a patent-medicine case in New York State.* 

 The judge tersely summed up the whole matter thus : " As to the 

 public, if these pills are an innocent humbug, by which both par- 

 ties " (the litigants) " are trying to make money, I doubt whether 

 it is my duty on that question of property, of right and wrong 

 between them to step outside of the case and abridge the innocent 

 individual liberty, which all persons must be presumed to have in 

 common, of suffering themselves to be humbugged." 



But the trouble is, that too many patent pills and medicines are 

 not " innocent " humbugs. On the contrary, a large class of pat- 

 ent preparations are deadly poisons. We do not call medicine in 

 which chlorodyne, calomel, or opium is an ingredient, " innocent." 

 We need only point out that most soothing-sirups contain opium ; 

 that most face preparations have arsenic and oxide of zinc ; that 

 most "stomach bitters," so called, are composed of powerful drugs 

 or whiskey, principally ; that most of the health-restorers contain 

 narcotics. 



The unrestricted sale of secret or quack medicines is objection- 

 able. It has now become a matter of serious importance ; it ren- 

 ders murder, suicide, and crime easy. People injured by taking 

 patent medicine are not without a legal remedy. The Supreme 

 Court of Georgia recently decided that nostrum-venders are liable 

 for damages to any person who, relying upon their cleverly worded 

 testimony, takes their baneful stuff, f To quote from the decision : 

 " These proprietary or patent medicines are secret, or intended to 

 be secret, as to their contents. They " (the venders) " expect to 

 derive a profit from such secrecy. They are therefore liable for 

 all injuries sustained by any one who takes their medicine in such 

 quantities as may be prescribed by them. . . . He " (the victim) 

 " has a right to rely upon the statement and recommendation of 

 the proprietor, printed and published through the world." 



It is time that some restrictions were thrown around the sale 

 of patent medicines. Venders of secret remedies practice cruel 

 and dangerous deception. The traffic in some sixty thousand nos- 

 trums, many of them containing deadly drugs, has given rise to 

 an anomalous state of affairs. For obvious reasons, the law 

 should compel nostrum-venders to, make public the names and 

 proportions of the ingredients. That is what is done in other 

 countries. Even the Japanese are in advance of us in regulating 

 the sale of patent medicine. They compel the proprietor of a 

 secret remedy to present a sample, with the name and the amounts 

 of the ingredients, directions for its use, and explanations of its 

 supposed efficacy. Or, we might adopt the French plan of making 



* 18 IIo ward's Pract. Reports, 242. . 



f The Blood Calm Company vs. Cooper, decided October 14, 1889. 



