REPORT OF THE SOLICITOR. 



399 



At the close of the year 313 cases were pending, of which 213 were 

 criminiil i)rosecutions and 100 wore seizures. 



In addition to the cases reported by this department to the Depart- 

 ment of Justice the food and drugs officials of the various States and 

 of the District of Columbia, collaborating with the department in the 

 enforcement of tlio act, reported 29 cases to the United States attor- 

 neys for action. Of these, 15 were criminal cases and 14 were seizures. 

 In all of the criminal cases there were convictions. In all of the 

 seizure cases decrees were entered and the products either released on 

 bond or sold. Decrees were entered in three cases reported prior to 

 this fiscal year and the products released on bond. The fines in the 

 criminal cases were as follows : 



1 Released on personal bond. 



Five hundred notices of judgment were published during the 

 year. 



CASES OF INTEREST. 



In Simpson v. United States (241 Fed. 841 ; Cir. 88, Office of 

 the Solicitor j the defendant, trading as The C. M. Simpson Medical 

 Institute of Cleveland, Ohio, was convicted, after a plea of not 

 guilty, in the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The 

 offense consisted in the shipment from Ohio to Minnesota of a medici- 

 nal compound designated " Simpson's Cerebro-Spinal Nerve Com- 

 pound," which contained on the label of the package and an accom- 

 panying circular certain statements regarding the therapeutic and 

 curative effects of the article, which were alleged to be false and 

 fraudulent. On appeal to the circuit court of appeals, it was held 

 that unless an information is void an objection that it was not made 

 on the oath of the prosecuting officer but solely upon the oaths of 

 witnesses by affidavits, some of which were taken before notaries 

 public, could not be raised for the first time on appeal unless a re- 

 fusal to consider it would shock the judicial conscience: that such 

 objection was purely technical and was waive(J by pleading to the 

 information without protest. The court also held that in charging 

 the interstate shipment by defendant of a medicinal compound 

 designated by his own name on the labels and in the accompanying 

 circular, which label and circular contained statements regarding 

 the therapeutic efficacy of the compound which were false and fraud- 

 ulent in that they were applied to such article knowingly and in 

 reckless and wanton disregard of their truth or falsity, the informa- 

 tion substantially averred the defendant's knowledge and reckless 

 and wanton disregard of the truth or falsity of these therapeutic 

 claims; that, consequently, the fraud, a necessary element in the 



