80 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



to their attention. No one is interested in the exploitation of 

 non-proprietary drugs, or those which can be freely manufac- 

 tured and sold by every one, and such drugs must derive their 

 reputation for therapeutic value from the formal description of 

 them in text books on materia medica and from the experience 

 of those who have used them. 



Proprietary remedies, on the other hand, are liberally ex- 

 ploited by advertising in the medical journals, by samples sent 

 to physicians, by exhibits made at medical conventions, and by 

 other adroit commercial methods. The physician is bom- 

 barded with literature describing the preparations and the 

 classes of affections in which they have been found helpful, and 

 these descriptions are not in the formal and unemotional 

 phraseology of the text books, but in the enthusiastic language 

 of a partisan. The physician is persuaded to try, finds a prepa- 

 ration effectual, and continues to use it thereafter, although it 

 may be no better than some corresponding official preparation, 

 or it may even be an official preparation differing only in some 

 immaterial particular, such as color or flavor. 



Owing to this extensive use of patented and other proprie- 

 tary preparations by the medical profession the Pharmacopoeia 

 might almost be said to be merely a theoretical standard for the 

 physician, since the majority of drugs he makes use of are not 

 found in it, and his information as to the composition and value 

 of those he does use is derived mainly from the literature sup- 

 plied by the manufacturers of such preparations. Sometimes 

 a manufacturer gives one formula on the label, and at the same 

 time uses a different formula — as proved by the fact that an 

 exact following of the published formula will not reproduce the 

 preparation — so that the composition is in fact secret, though 

 pretending to be non-secret. 



As might be expected, this large use of proprietary prepara- 

 tions in preference to official medicines has been productive of 

 much controversy in medical and pharmaceutical circles. Those 

 who support the use of U. S. P. preparations justly say, "What 

 is the use of having an official list of medicines, if it is not ob- 

 served in prescribing?" To this the physician who uses pro- 

 prietaries replies, "What difference does it make to me or to 

 my patient whether remedies I use are official or proprietary, if 

 they produce the desired results? Proprietary remedies are 



