FEDERAL LAWS. 15 



house during the last twelve months. The so-called scammony now imported 

 contains generally only about one-half the active principle of the genuine article, 

 it being a combination of that drug and a worthless vegetable extract com- 

 mingled with clay. Pure scammony is an expensive drug; hence the object of 

 its adulteration. 



Many of the medicinal gums and gum resins imported are so deteriorated or 

 combined with earthy or other matters that they are not only unsafe, but worth- 

 less for medicinal purposes. 



The medicinal extracts, which are very important medical agents when pure, 

 were formerly made with great care and of one uniform strength, but they now 

 come to us not only prepared of the refuse of inferior drugs, but also greatly 

 adulterated, etc. These worthless extracts in external appearance are well 

 calculated to deceive, the parcels being as neatly put up, labeled, etc., as those 

 of the genuine. They are sold by the foreign manufacturer, on an average, at 

 about one-half the price of the pure article. 



In this business, as well as in the manufacture of chemical preparations as 

 used in medicine, there has been for years past a regular system of fraud car- 

 ried on by many of the foreign manufacturers. They have not only expressed 

 their willingness to prepare and send out to order any article in their line, adul- 

 terated to any extent desired, with a corresponding price to suit, but they now, 

 it seems, keep constantly on hand a supply of the adulterated, as well as of the 

 pure preparations, and when remonstrated with by our honest importers they 

 excuse themselves by saying that they " must accommodate the demands or lose 

 sales, etc., as both qualities are ordered in large quantities from the United 

 States the genuine article," as they are given to understand, " for the seaboard, 

 and the adulterated for the western trade." 



The blue pill mass, a vastly important and useful pharmaceutical preparation, 

 comes to us greatly and dangerously adulterated. This article, when pure, con- 

 tains 33J per cent of mercury, combined with conserve of roses, etc. The adul- 

 terated article, of which large quantities are imported and sold, is, according to 

 the very correct analysis of Professor Reid, of the New York College of Phar- 

 macy, as follows : 



Per cent. 



Mercury 7. 5 



Earthy clay 27 



Prussian blue, used in coloring 1. 5 



Sand, in combination with clay 2 



Soluble saccharine matters 34 



Insoluble organic matter 12 



\Vater__ 10 



Total 100 



Thus it will be seen this spurious article contains less than one-quarter of the 

 active principle of the genuine, to say nothing of the indigestible earthy mat- 

 ter, etc. 



Sulphate of quinine, or the salts of the Peruvian bark, a medicine now consid- 

 ered indispensable and of universal use, particularly where intermittent fever 

 prevails, comes to us adulterated in various ways. The usual method is to com- 

 bine it with silicine (the salts of the willow bark), chalk, plaster of paris, etc. 

 The silicine possesses similar medicinal qualities, and resembles quinine very 

 much in appearance, but it is afforded at less than one-fourth the price, and is 

 very far inferior in strength. This spurious article is largely imported, neatly 

 put up in French style, with the label of the celebrated Pelletier, of Paris (the 

 original and always one of the most honorable foreign manufacturers), on each 

 article. 



This trash is made at an extensive establishment in Belgium, the whole busi- 

 ness of which, your committee are informed, is to manufacture and dispose of 

 base imitations of all the important foreign chemical and medicinal prepara- 

 tions. An agent of this establishment has been in this country for the last ten 

 months. His business is to effect sales and obtain orders. No wonder that 

 those suffering the affliction of fever and ague in the western country take qui- 

 nine by the teaspoonful at a dose, rather than a few grains, which is all-sufficient 

 when the article is pure. 



Calomel is imported not only crudely prepared, but more or less adulterated 

 with a white argillaceous earth or clay and other articles, while it is put up 

 after the manner and bears the name of some well-known and deservedly popu- 

 lar manufacturing chemist. The whole is a base imitation and fraud, 



