Chemical and Physical Papers. 3t 



Further, any intelligent, thoughtful person knows that many of the symp- 

 toms listed by the plaintiff (including heart troubles) are caused by other 

 diseases or disorders. For one sick to diagnose his own case is the height 

 of folly, yet this plaintiff advises^the poor deluded victim to pass upon sub- 

 jects often baffling the highest medical skill to settle the'nature of the dis- 

 ease, and then to take "Dr. Miles' Nervine," or "Heart Cure," or some 

 other high-sounding preparations of unknown ingredients, recommended in 

 glowing "testimonials." The enormous business done by the proprietors 

 of medicine and the serious menace which it is to the health and lives of the 

 public requires us to scrutinize carefully the ground upon which the plain- 

 tiff stands, and as it has shown that it belongs to^the reprehensible class, 

 we decline to grant it a decree. 



The proprietors, dealers and nostrum manufacturers in opposi- 

 tion to this legal attitude — that they are not deserving of legal 

 recognition — state that the real fact is that nostrums are to a very 

 large and almost universal extent the most successful prescriptions 

 of our most advanced and successful physicians, etc. On the other 

 hand, the American Pharmaceutical Association has formally pro- 

 tested against this system of business, and especially that part of 

 the business which seems to say that the pharmacists have un- 

 fairly appropriated and launched upon the public, as specifics for 

 disease, prescriptions of physicians. It most emphatically pro- 

 tested against such a statement as an injury and damaging to the 

 reputation of the pharmacy profession. It furthermore states 

 there is in fact no drug which may be truly described as a specific 

 or cure for any disease. Furthermore, the highest medical skill is 

 required to diagnose each disease and to recognize its various 

 stages as they develop, and no prescription will answer the 

 requirements of all the different stages of the same disease. When 

 a medicine, whether it be the prescription of a reputable physician 

 or not, is given a name and launched on the public as a specific or 

 cure, when it is not, the person so doing is guilty of a moral wrong 

 to the community. This principle is everywhere recognized by 

 enlightened communities, and prohibitive or restrictive laws have 

 been passed to control the secret nostrum business in such coun- 

 tries as France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Japan, Brazil, Ar- 

 gentina, etc. 



The public should at least have the opportunity of knowing the 

 medicinal ingredients and their percentage in the composition of 

 every agent used for the prevention and treatment of disease, so 

 that the people may be protected from the machinations of quack- 

 ery. It is admitted by the "Proprietary Association" in the fore- 

 going quotation that so-called "patent medicines" are usually not 



