290 HAMILTON P. DUFFIELD 



pound, while East India costs forty five, and Russian two 

 dollars and fifty cents per pound. 



Dr. J. M. Bailey was made examiner of drugs at the port 

 of New York in 1846, and he testified before the committee, 

 that more than one and a half million dollars' worth of drugs 

 passed through that custom house annually, and more than 

 one half were adulterated or deteriorated. Accepted contracts 

 made by the bureau of medicine and surgery were taken to 

 show evidence of adulteration and fraud, and to demonstrate 

 the need of legislation. Peruvian bark, not powdered, con- 

 tract price per pound fifty cents, market price seventy cents. 

 Peruvian bark in powder per pound, price twenty five cents, 

 market price seventy five cents. Eleterium, contract price 

 per pound one dollar, market price, three dollars and fifty 

 cents. Rhubarb, pulverized, contract price per pound seventy 

 five cents, market price, one dollar and twenty five cents. 

 A few more were added, and given only as samples of the ac- 

 cepted contracts. The report of the committee led to the 

 enactment of the law without debate. 



The following argument is quoted from the report of the 

 committee: ^'The laws punish the use of the dagger, yet 

 nothing protects the community from violence not less fatal, 

 but better concealed under the popular name of trade. If a 

 man write another's name, or pass a counterfeit bill, the prison 

 is his doom; if he stop the mail on the highway, and thereby 

 endanger life, he may be executed." To pass a counterfeit 

 bill is a crime, but to pass a counterfeit medicine is not. Trade 

 and correspondence are more valuable than life, because es- 

 pecial laws are passed for their protection. To state the argu- 

 ment is to refute it. Destitution and want may drive a man 

 to seize upon that which is his neighbor's, and we might in pity 

 overlook the crime, or cover it with the mantle of charity; but 

 the cold blooded, deliberate, studied, and fatal deception 

 practiced in articles designed for the relief of suffering and 

 disease, can admit of no palliation — can find no excuse." 



The investigation resulting from the Spanish-American 

 war crystallized public sentiment, and pure food laws were 

 enacted in several states, some mildly restrictive, but others, 

 as in Indiana, Washington, Illinois, California, and South 



