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PATENTS  IN  THEIR  RELATION  TO  PHARMACY. 
which  are  the  only  ones  of  much  utility  to  the  inventors,  the 
public  must  be  the  losers  just  so  far  as  free  and  open  competition 
is  shut  out. 
The  opposite  extremes  which  prudence  would  seem  to  indicate 
we  should  avoid,  are  perhaps  best  provided  against  by  the  course 
which  I  understand  the  professional  sentiment  now  allows  among 
the  more  respectable  pharmaceutists.  As  a  profession,  we  re- 
cognize no  patenting  of  medicines,  and  the  U.  S.  Commissioners, 
at  the  Patent  Office,  rarely  allow  this  class  of  patents  when 
applied  for  ;  and  in  the  few  instances  in  which  they  grant  them, 
merely  patent  "the  compositions  of  matter,"  never  patenting 
them  as  specifics  for  any  particular  diseases,  nor  as  remedies 
possessed  of  any  special  therapeutic  properties.  In  fact,  so 
opposed  is  the  system  of  patenting  to  the  interests  of  those  who 
prepare  and  vend  proprietory  medicines,  that  the  chief  applica- 
tions come  from  western  practitioners  for  blood  purifiers," 
"  female  aids"  and  other  abominations,  few  of  which  possess  the 
requisite  originality  to  claim  a  patent,  and  from  none  of  which 
would  the  public  gain  anything,  in  the  event  of  their  being 
fostered  into  life  by  the  aid  of  our  laws.  Some  of  the  countries 
of  Europe  refuse  patents  for  food  or  medicine,  and  I  believe  the 
number  issued  in  any  country  to  be  small.  The  number  of  pat- 
ents issued  for  medicines  in  this  country  in  a  year,  does  not 
exceed  six  or  eight. 
The  idea  that  a  medicine  is  patentable  at  all,  is  liable  to  one 
objection  which  I  may  here  state.  The  medical  colleges,  hold- 
ing characters  from  the  several  States,  are  understood  to  grant 
in  their  diplomas  the  right  to  prescribe  and  compound  all  the 
compositions  of  matter"  applicable  to  the  cure  of  disease.  Has 
the  U.  S.  government  a  legal  right  to  contravene  or  limit  these 
chartered  rights  of  physicians  by  declaring  that  any  particular 
combination  shall  not  be  prescribed  or  administered  except  by  a 
certain  patentee  ? 
The  views  advanced  in  relation  to  patenting  medicines  does 
not  apply  equally  to  processes  or  to  forms  of  apparatus  used 
primarily  or  incidentally  in  their  preparation.  A  patent  seems 
here  to  be  legitimate  and  of  service  as  a  stimulus  to  invention 
and  a  reward  or  compensation  for  the  investment  of  time  and 
money  in  perfecting  it. 
