573 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Thirdly.—The charge for a licence should 
be equalized all through the kingdom, and 
allowed to be held by anybody else who 
chose to pay the price. 
I am, Sir, yours truly, 
Aleked Utley. 
6, Mount Vernon Road, Liverpool. 
Sir,—It appears to me not improbable that 
the Government, aware how unsatisfactory 
are the patent medicine laws, may ask us, be¬ 
fore the introduction of the next budget, what 
the trade can propose to amend them, and I 
cannot discover, on reading the resolutions 
proposed or passed at their monthly meet¬ 
ings, that the Council is prepared fully to 
answer that question. Many sound sug¬ 
gestions on this subject have, in answer to 
your request, appeared in this Journal; my 
attempt will be, by supplying a connecting 
link so to group them as to present -what 
may be accepted by every interest in the 
patent medicine trade and by the guardians 
of the public interests as a safe and compre¬ 
hensive scheme. 
The Government, we may assume, is pre¬ 
pared to sever itself from any connection 
with secret medicines, so far as appearing 
by that title of patent, to lend them either 
its authority or sanction. Willingly would 
it leave to the Dr. Bosches of the future 
the credit together with the business, of 
selling “The Yitalizing Nectar,” minus 
the old flourishes, “ By Boyal Letters Pa¬ 
tent. Observe! To prevent imposition, the 
Honourable Commissioners of Stamps have 
ordered the word ‘Bosch’ to be printed in 
sky-blue letters on the Government stamp,” 
and that awful warning, “ to imitate which 
is felony ,” etc. etc. 
It is time, in this matter-of-fact age, to 
cease calling medicines patent (always a 
blundering misnomer), and to give the thing 
its proper name,—a proprietary medicine. 
The equalization of the licence charge is 
generally agreed upon, but not its amount. 
I would fix it at £1, because this sum would 
leave the amount of revenue levied on pro¬ 
prietary medicines about the same as at pre¬ 
sent. The sum paid for licences would be 
increased, but in return we should propose 
to free certain articles from the stamp duty. 
This may, at first sight, appear unfair to 
the retailer; it will be found a necessary 
forestep to a following proposition, and the 
scheme must be taken as a whole. 
As many articles are now liable to stamp 
duty which, in reality, have no pretensions 
to the character of medicines, the Board of 
Inland Revenue has it in its power, for this 
reason among others, to confer an essential 
boon by consolidating the Acts now affect¬ 
ing proprietary articles, and defining dis¬ 
tinctly what constitutes a medicine, and 
what is, on the other hand, a merchandise, 
for the lady at her toilette, or the cook in 
her kitchen. Such a line it would not be 
difficult to draw. 
It appears to me that such packages as 
Rowland’s Odonto, Kalydor; Godfrey’s Ex- 
ti'act of Elder Flowers; Du Barry’s Food, 
etc., are as fairly the stock-in-trade of the 
perfumer and grocer as of the C. and D., 
and they come under the same regulations 
for sale as patent medicines solely through 
the operation of obscure and conflicting 
Acts of Parliament. The public is thus 
doubly inconvenienced, the facilities for the 
sale of such articles are lessened, and their 
price is enhanced to consumers. 
Taking things as they are in the patent 
medicine trade, I would show the fullest re¬ 
gard to vested interests. All existing rights, 
both of manufacture and sale, by whomso¬ 
ever at present possessed, should be amply 
and strictly reserved to their present hold¬ 
ers, and those individual privileges I would 
formally secure to them by registration. 
Having so far considered mainly the in¬ 
terests of the compounders, proprietors, and 
sellers of what now come under the desig¬ 
nation of patent medicines, I would turn 
to the public, “ though last, not least con¬ 
cerned.” 
The great importance of this subject to 
them, all who affect to advise or undertake to 
legislate upon it are bound to consider. Our 
interest in it is that of a pecuniary return and 
convenience in business; theirs may truly be 
called “ vital.” We sell these patent medi¬ 
cines, they take them. Common sense and 
consistency -would lead us to extend the pro¬ 
visions of the Pharmacy Act to patent medi¬ 
cines so far as circumstances will permit. 
The law, on the one hand, interposes its 
will to prevent mixtures of so many drugs 
and chemicals being issued to the public 
otherwise than surrounded by certain safe¬ 
guards, on the other it sanctions the most 
reckless distribution of any compound—and 
many are villainous enough—which the 
fancy of the compounder may suggest, and 
that principally to the poorer and unwary 
portion of the community. The public 
-would receive a great boon were it enacted 
that no secret medicine should be prepared 
or sold for general use unless prepared or 
sold by a person duly educated in therapeu¬ 
tics or materia medica, i. e. a duly qualified 
medical practitioner, or a registered chemist 
and druggist. 
To carry out the above proposition, and 
also that consumers may .know wkose medi¬ 
cines they are really taking, I would 'exact 
that the name in full, style, and address of 
the proprietor and maker of any secret medi¬ 
cine be printed on every package, bottle, 
bill, pamphlet, or advertisement pertaining 
thereto. Whoever buys a box of Cockle’s 
