and Baleman's was included in the laller, must not 

 differ from the standard of strength, quaHty, or purity 

 as established by these volumes. Yet the Bateman 

 Drops produced in Reading, the government charged, 

 fell short. They contained only 27.8 percent of the 

 alcohol and less than a tenth of the morphine that 

 they should have had. While short on active ingredi- 

 ents, the Drops were long on claims. The wrapper 

 boasted that the medicine was "effective as a remedy 

 for all fluxes, spitting of blood, agues, measles, colds, 

 coughs, and to put off the most violent fever; as a 

 treatment, remedy, and cure for stone and gravel 

 in the kidneys, bladder, and urethra, shortness of 

 breath, straightness of the breast; and to rekindle 

 the most natural heat in the bodies by which they 

 restore the languishing to perfect health." Okell and 

 Dicey had scarcely promised more. By 20th-century 

 standards, the government asserted, these claims were 

 false and fraudulent. 



Other manufacturers sold Bateman's Drops without 

 running afoul of the law. In 1925. ninety-nine years 

 after the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy pamphlet 

 was printed, one North Carolina firm was persuaded 

 that it still was relevant to tell potential customers, in 

 a handbill, that its Drops were being made in strict 

 conformity with the College formula."' For Com- 

 pound Tincture of Opium and Gambir Compovmd, 

 however, most manufacturers chose to follow the 

 National Jormularj specifications, which remained offi- 

 cial until 1936. 



Another old English patent medicine against which 

 the Department of Agriculture was forced to take 

 action was Hooper's Female Pills. Between 1919 and 

 1923, government agents seized a great many ship- 

 ments of this ancient remedy in versions put out by 

 three Philadelphia concerns."' Some of the pack- 

 ages bore red seals, others green seals, and still others 

 black, but the labeling of all claimed them to be 

 "a safe and sovereign remedy in female complaints." 

 This theme was expanded in considerable detail and 

 there was an 18th-century ring to the promise that 

 the pills would work a sure cure "in all hypochondriac. 



"' Original handbill, distributed by Standard Urug Co., 

 Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1925, preserved in the files of 

 the Bureau of Investigation, American Medical Association, 

 Chicago, 111. 



1" Multiple seizures were made of products shipped by the 

 Horace B. Taylor Co., Fore & Co., and the American Synthetic 

 Co. The quotations are from Notice of Judgment 8868; see 

 also 8881, 8914, 8936, 8956, 8974, 9134, 9147, 9203, 9510, 

 9586, 9785, 10203, 10204, 10629, 11519, 11669. 



hysterick or vapourish disorders." No pill made es- 

 sentially of aloes and ferrous sulphate, said the 

 government experts, could do these things. Nor 

 did the manufacturers, in court, seek to say otherwise. 

 Whether the seals were green or red, whether the 

 ])ackages were seized in Washington or Worcester, 

 the result was the same. No party appeared in court 

 to claim the pills, and they were condemned and 

 destroyed. 



In one of the last actions under the 1906 law, a 

 case concluded in 1940, after the first federal statute 

 had been superseded by a more rigorous one enacted 

 in 1938, two of the old English patent medicines 

 encountered trouble.''" They were British Oil 

 and Dalby's Carminative, as prepared by the South 

 Carolina branch of a large pharmaceutical manufac- 

 turing concern. 



According to the label, the British Oil was made 

 in conformity with the Philadelphia College of 

 Pharmacy formula given in an outdated edition of 

 the United Slates dispensatory. But instead of contain- 

 ing a proper amount of linseed oil, if indeed it con- 

 tained any, the medicine was made with cottonseed 

 oil, an ingredient not mentioned in the Dispensatory. 

 Therefore, the government charged, the Oil was 

 adulterated, under that provision of the law requiring 

 a medicine to maintain the strength and purity of 

 any standard it professed to follow. More than that, 

 the labeling contravened the law since it represented 

 the remedy as an effective treatment for various 

 swellings, inflammations, fresh wounds, earaches, 

 shortnesses of breath, and ulcers. 



Dalby's Carminative was merely misbranded, but 

 that was bad enough. Its label suggested that it be 

 used especially "For Infants Afflicted With \N'ind, 

 Watery Gripes, P'luxcs and Other Disorders of the 

 Stomach and Bowels," althousjh it would aid adults 

 as well. The impression that this remedy was capable 

 of curing such afflictions, the government charged, 

 was false and fraudulent. Moreover, since the Carmi- 

 native contained opium, it was not a safe medicine 

 when given according to the dosage directions in 

 a circular accompanvintj the bottle. For these and 

 several other violations of the law, the defending 

 company, which did not contest the case, was fined 

 a hundred dollars. 



120 Federal Security .Agency, Food and Drug .Administration, 

 Notice of Judgment 31134, United States vs. McKesson and 

 Robbins, Inc., Murray Division, 1942. 



180 



BULLETIN 218: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



