Decembeb 23, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



893 



ever, when it is dispensed under a mis- 

 leading name in quantities beyond the 

 safety limit. Most of the headache cures 

 sold in tablets so freely in the last few years 

 contain acetanilide, and because they are 

 advertised as safe they are often used in 

 excessive amounts, with sudden death as 

 an occasional consequence. Five years ago 

 many of these headache cures were dis- 

 tributed from house to house in free 

 samples and they were advertised in the 

 medical and the lay press. Several of them 

 were manufactured by companies which 

 had grown rich in the business, and it was 

 recognized that the companies might fight 

 our efforts. To show our own strength and 

 interest in the matter and determine just 

 what could be actually done we decided to 

 take up this difficult problem first, and 

 therefore began examinations of the prod- 

 ucts known as antikamnia, salacetin, am- 

 monol, orangeine, Koehler's Headache 

 Powders and phenalgin. These things had 

 been paraded as discoveries of rare value 

 and true and new synthetics, in some in- 

 stances. In the advertising literature of 

 some of them the dangerous acetanilide was 

 warned against. 



As was to be expected the work of our 

 committee showed that each one of these 

 highly praised cures contained acetanilide 

 as its main constituent, and usually in 

 combination with caffeine and sodium bi- 

 carbonate. In the samples of the several 

 products as bought in the market the 

 amounts of acetanilide ranged from 43 to 

 76 per cent. The report of the council was 

 signed by the five men on the committee of 

 chemistry, Long, Puckner, Sadtler, Stieg- 

 litz and "Wiley, the work having been done 

 in the five laboratories represented, and 

 independently. This report was published 

 in the Journal of the American Medical 

 Association, June 3, 1905. 



It is putting it mildly to say that the pub- 



lication of the first report, taken with the 

 previoiisly announced program of the coun- 

 cil, created consternation among the manu- 

 facturers of dishonestly advertised proprie- 

 tary remedies. Abuse came to us from many 

 quarters and articles were sent out to 

 physicians all over the country denouncing 

 the presumptuous work of an irresponsible 

 council which should undertake to tell 

 physicians what they should or should not 

 use. St. Louis has long been the home of a 

 large number of fake medical preparations 

 and from that city a vicious pamphlet was 

 sent out by the thousands under the 

 euphonious title "The Arrogance of Eth- 

 ics," in which the Journal of the Ameri- 

 can Medical Association, its editor and the 

 Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry were 

 severely handled on account of the meddle- 

 some work they had undertaken. 



Certain interests associated with the 

 acetanilide exploitation even went so far 

 as to threaten law suits against us. The 

 suits, however, were never started. Our 

 committee would have found pleasure in 

 defending them. Two firms in other lines, 

 seeing what had been done for acetanilide, 

 notified us through their la^'j'ers not to 

 publish anything concerning their prod- 

 ucts. This advice was wholly unnecessary 

 as far as one of the products, bromidia, 

 was concerned, as the method of advertis- 

 ing it made a study unnecessary. Some of 

 the products of the other firm have since 

 been examined and condemned. The coun- 

 cil has no fear of punishment for any work 

 it is doing, which, as mentioned, is abso- 

 lutely voluntary and without compensa- 

 tion. 



Our work was now pushed vigorously, 

 and to make plain its basis it is necessary 

 to explain the sources from which the 

 physician draws the remedies he prescribes. 

 These sources may be classed as follows : 

 (a) There is first the "Pharmacopoeia 



