496 
Organization  of  Ill-Health. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    October,  1910. 
The  wisdom  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeial 
Convention  (1900),  in  effecting  the  co-operation  of  the  Surgeon- 
General  of  the  Public  Health  and  Marine-Hospital  Service  of  the 
United  States  in  this  work,  is  becoming  more  and  more  apparent 
as  each  volume  of  "  Digests  "  appears. 
THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  ILL-HEALTH. 
There  are  a  number  of  commercial  interests  in  this  country  that 
do  not  want  an  independent  national  department  of  health.  In 
recent  years  we  have  had  many  exposures  of  the  patent  medicine 
swindle.  We  have  learned  that  most  of  the  most  popular  patent 
medicines,  the  so-called  tonics,  were  nothing  more  than  dilute 
alcohol  with  certain  bitter  drugs  so  as  to  make  them  taste  mediciny. 
Physicians  have  seen  alcohol  habits  formed  as  a  consequence  of 
freely  imbibing  these  alcoholic  preparations.  Some  of  them  were 
meant  particularly  for  women's  diseases,  and  the  consequence  has 
been  a  feminine  nipping  at  alcoholic  products  that  has  worked 
serious  harm  to  the  women  of  the  country.  We  have  also  found 
that  the  headache  powders  so  commonly  advertised  were  composed 
of  drugs  which,  when  taken  as  freely  as  was  advised  on  the  labels 
of  many  of  these  preparations,  were  seriously  dangerous.  We 
have  had  not  a  few,  but  many,  deaths  as  a  consequence  of  them. 
The  soothing  syrups  for  children  mostly  contained  opium  and  were 
seriously  injuring  the  growing  child  at  an  important  period  of  its 
development,  and  adding  to  the  number  of  nervous  wrecks  with 
tendencies  to  drug  addictions  in  after  life  that  we  had  in  this 
country. 
For  a  time  after  these  exposures  the  patent  medicine  swindlers 
were  very  quiet.  In  many  cases  their  advertisements  disappeared 
from  their  usual  places.  Now  they  are  gaining  courage  again. 
The  American  people  have  proverbially  a  very  short  memory  for 
such  exposures.  The  patent  medicine  people  dread  very  much  the 
organization  of  a  national  department  of  health,  because  this  will 
sadly  interfere  with  their  now  happy  prospect  of  reviving  their 
business  and  fattening  their  purses  at  the  cost  of  the  health  of  our 
people.  This  is  one  element  in  the  opposition  organized  for  ill- 
health. 
There  are  others.  There  are  a  number  of  people  in  this  country 
who  would  like  to  be  freer  to  foist  drugs,  impure  foods,  and  ques- 
