CHAPTER III 



THE QUALITY AND PURITY OF VEGETABLE DRUGS FROM 

 THE STANDPOINT OF THE PURE DRUGS ACT 



I. THE PURE DRUGS LAWS 



Through the efforts of a few public-spirited men backed by the 

 American public we now have a national pure food and drugs law. 

 This law went into effect June 30, 1906. There is no single legislative 

 act of recent times which equals this in importance. With this law 

 as a guide the several states have enacted similar laws. In addition 

 to this we have city ordinances which likewise have more or less super- 

 vision as regards the quality and purity of foods and drugs. If the 

 letter of the law or laws were followed we should have nothing but 

 foods and drugs of absolute purity and of the highest quality but 

 in spite of all legal restrictions, adulteration continues to be practiced. 

 In fact as the prohibitory measures become more and more stringent 

 the methods of those who sophisticate and misrepresent become more 

 and more subtle. The chief benefit of the law is that it makes it 

 possible to punish offenders. Mere legislative enactment will not 

 stamp out the pernicious methods of the sophisticators; for the law- 

 breakers existed before the law and it is they who made it necessary to 

 formulate a law to hold them in check. 



Under the pure food and drug laws, federal and state laboratories 

 have been established in which much good work has been done. Of- 

 fenders have been fined and otherwise punished as provided by the 

 law. But after all, the chief work thus far has been of an educational 

 nature. Rulings and decisions by the Department of Agriculture 

 have been issued from time to time which serve as guides of conduct 

 and give information of the highest importance. Numerous papers of 

 instruction and lay constructions of the law have been published in the 

 pharmaceutical journals. Findings and notices of judgment have 

 been reported, etc., all of which is intended to teach and advise those 

 concerned in such a way as to make it easier for them to conform to the 

 requirements of the law. Many technical offenders have been let off 

 with a warning when it became evident that the offense was due to 

 ignorance of the law rather than criminal intent. 



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