ADULTERATION OF FOOD AND MEDICINE 289 



The law of compensation observed in nature we also find 

 operative in national crises. The existing law against im- 

 porting adulterated drugs, passed in 1848, was enacted after 

 an investigation of gross frauds in worthless drugs, which the 

 surgeons claimed were ineffectual to cope with diseases brought 

 on by the Mexican climate, and thus hundreds were sacrificed 

 to foreign greed aided and abetted by guilty importers. The 

 strenuous individual whose fearless statements started the 

 embalmed beef investigation, did as much toward saving the 

 lives and health of his fellow countrymen, by the agitation 

 then begun, as an army of physicians. The publicity given 

 the canners' frauds led to the arousal of a sentiment that will 

 eventually crystallize in a national pure food law, that will 

 enable rigid state laws to be made effective through control of 

 interstate conunerce. This resulted primarily from the Span- 

 ish-American war, whose cost in life and health will thus be 

 compensated, by the saving of the same to posterity, if it does 

 not benefit all our contemporaries. 



Through agitation consequent upon the loss of life from 

 disease of our army in Mexico during the Mexican war, a com- 

 mittee of physicians was appointed to investigate abuses in the 

 drug importation from foreign countries. The difference in 

 dosage of certain drugs was investigated ; sometimes fifteen or 

 twenty times as large a dose w?s given in the western and 

 southern states as in eastern localities. The result brought 

 out the fact that there were pure drugs for eastern physicians, 

 and inferior adulterated and sometimes v/orthless drugs, sent 

 out for the western and southern states, and to sell by contract 

 to the army. Europe at that time had stringent laws regulating 

 the sale and dispensing of drugs, so the United States was a 

 convenient and profitable dumping ground for these inferior 

 goods. 



The college of pharmacy of New York had for years pro- 

 tested against misnamed and sophisticated chemical prep- 

 arations as imported, as being detrimental to the custom 

 house, and to the health of the people. The Philadelphia 

 college of pharmacy was founded for the purpose of exposing 

 these frauds. Seven hundred pounds of rhubarb, practically 

 worthless, passed the custom house invoiced at five cents per 



Vol. 10-19 



