894 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 834 



of the United States," whieli is a work re- 

 vised every ten years and which contains 

 descriptions and formulas for remedies 

 that have been so long in use as to be con- 

 sidered as standard. There is no secret 

 about their preparation and they may be 

 made and sold by any one. But the fact 

 that they are contained in the "Pharma- 

 copceia" does not mean that they are val- 

 uable remedies. In fact, many of them are 

 not. The preparations of the "Pharma- 

 copoeia" are called ofScial and the book 

 has legal standing in the United States. 



(&) We have next the so-called "Na- 

 tional Formulary," which is a compilation 

 of remedies selected by the American 

 Pharmaceutical Association. The articles 

 described here have not the wide use of 

 those in the "Pharmacopoeia." Some of 

 them are new remedies not fully tried out 

 and some have more of a local reputation. 

 Many of them are good and valuable, and 

 many are not, but their use is sanctioned 

 by the experience of many physicians, ap- 

 parently. 



(c) Third, the so-called "ethical" pro- 

 prietary products, which are made by proc- 

 esses in a measure secret, or owned by the 

 producing firms. Many of these products 

 are new organic compounds of great physi- 

 ological activity, while some are mixtures 

 or combinations of long known remedies. 

 Some are good, and some, on the other 

 hand, are bad, even very bad. But as long 

 as these products are made for and adver- 

 tised to physicians only they have been 

 called ethical as distinguished from the 

 ordinary "patent" medicines which are 

 sold to everybody, and not usually on the 

 prescription of a physician. Many of the 

 manufacturers of this group of products 

 make a point of the ethical character of 

 their wares, the test of "ethicity" being 

 essentially in the method of advertising. 

 A remedy which is advertised directly to 



the public, as are the ordinary patent med- 

 icines, is said to be unethical, while one 

 which is described in the professional jour- 

 nals for the eye of the physician only is 

 supposed to be ethical. At least this is the 

 way some of the manufacturers interpret 

 the criterion. 



If to be ethical it is simply necessary to 

 advertise in medical journals only, it is 

 very easy to keep within the ethical pale. 

 To publish one's own medical journal is all 

 that is called for, and it may occasion sur- 

 prise to learn that probably half a dozen 

 journals in this country are published by 

 manufacturers to advertise their products. 

 This fact is not stated on the title page, 

 however. Some of these publications have 

 a subscription list, others not. One of the 

 worst of these comes from a small town in 

 Connecticut. The reading matter in them 

 consists of articles purporting to give the 

 experience of the writers with the various 

 remedies lauded in the advertising pages. 

 In this simple way many worthless prod- 

 ucts become ethical proprietaries. But it 

 must be admitted that many medical jour- 

 nals of greater pretensions are not much 

 better in their advertising matter. 



(d) We have, finally, the large group of 

 patent medicines, which are not really pat- 

 ented in the usual sense of the term. The 

 name under which they are sold is ordi- 

 narily copyrighted, and their success de- 

 pends on wide advertising to the general 

 public through the daily press. Many of 

 these articles are mixtures which may have 

 had value for some specific ailment and 

 were often originally popular prescrip- 

 tions. But in the patent medicine form 

 the composition is not disclosed, and for 

 them much more is claimed than this could 

 possibly warrant. In many eases they con- 

 tain powerful remedies which should not 

 be used except on the advice of a compe- 

 tent person. They often accomplish re- 



