366 
VARIETIES. 
of chemicals and compounds, and crude drugs, are all that is necessary for 
my purpose in speaking of the effects and applications of the law. 
First, with regard to the effect upon chemicals and compound medicines : 
Previous to the passage of this law, no restriction was laid upon any class 
of medicines coming in under this head. If the importer paid the requisite 
duty, no questions were asked, no limit was fixed as to quality or condition. 
It needs no argument, but merely a mention of the fact, to show that any 
compound medicine or chemical preparation may be so made as to deceive 
the unsuspecting and uneducated, and even very often the druggist, apo- 
thecary, physician and all, because they were not in the habit of analysing 
their articles, and were deceived by their external, often times very fine 
appearance. Under the combined influence of competition and avarice — 
two strong temptations — the manufacture of articles of this class had be- 
come systematised, and on purpose to supply the United States market. 
The immediate and positive beneficial results of the law may be seen in 
the fact that now very few, if indeed any, spurious or sophisticated chemi- 
cal preparations, for pharmaceutical purposes, are even offered at our ports, 
or by any possibility find their way into our markets. Manufacturing 
chemists and importers of this description of medicines, finding it impos- 
sible to get such goods through our custom houses, will, of course, not risk 
the loss of bringing them here, but in their stead will import such as are 
known to come up to our required standards. Under this general head of 
chemicals, may be included a large majority of the manufactured and com- 
pound medicines used in practice by the medical faculty, and all the most 
important usually purchased by others for domestic uses, more especially 
in the west and south, where every man, almost, is obliged to learn the 
uses and doses of calomel, blue mass and quinine, &c. The certainty of 
purity in these articles alone, is a matter of no small moment to the com- 
munity at large ; of the probabilities of their home adulteration I shall also 
refer to elsewhere. 
A few articles of this class may now and then, either through culpable 
negligence on the part of the inspector, or by being entered under a false 
name, be imported, but they must be few, and are daily growing less. An 
instance of this kind has occurred in New York, where a large lot of sul- 
phate of lime was offered in market, under the name of precipitated chalk. 
The New York College of Pharmacy, standing very properly as the guar- 
dians of the public health, and protectors of this act, for which they had 
petitioned and which they had agreed to support, by committee, reported 
the fact, and warned the holders of the consequences of continuing to sell 
the article as a medicinal preparation, upon which they very readily with- 
drew it. How it came into the city that committee have never been able to 
ascertain ; whether imported under the head of plaster of Paris, and thus 
escaping the eye of the inspector, or whether passed by him, or at some 
other port, without due test and examination, I am not able to say. That 
it was imported under a false name is to my mind the most likely of all. 
