A  j^uaryPib907m'}    Publicity  on  the  Standing  of  Nostrums.  29 
THE  EFFECT  OF  PUBLICITY  ON  THE  STANDING  AND 
USE  OF  NOSTRUMS.1 
By  Charges  H.  IvAWai^i,. 
The  organization  of  the  Council  on  Pharmacy  and  Chemistry  of 
the  American  Medical  Association  in  the  spring  of  1905  was  the 
initial  step  of  a  movement  on  the  part  of  two  great  professions,  i.e., 
Pharmacy  and  Medicine,  to  throw  off  a  burden  under  which  the  pro- 
fessions  themselves  and  the  great  American  public  had  been  stag- 
gering for  years  and  which  fast  increasing  weight  was  becoming 
intolerable. 
"  The  Nostrum  Evil,"  as  it  has  rightly  come  to  be  called,  has 
grown  so  insidiously,  partly  because  of  the  cowardice  and  more 
particularly  because  of  the  laxness  of  the  two  professions  which  are 
best  able  to  cope  with  it  and  combat  it  successfully,  that,  at  the 
present  time,  it  constitutes  a  veritable  ogre  Frankenstein,  whose 
crimes  are  no  less  atrocious  than  those  of  its  mythical  prototype, 
but  whose  form  has  become  so  familiar  that  there  are  still  those 
who  would  defend  the  system  of  charlatanism  and  fraud  with  which 
it  has  enveloped  itself. 
Although  more  than  a  year  has  passed  since  the  opening  blow  was 
struck,  and  although  many  powerful  thrusts  have  been  made  by  the 
two-edged  rapier  of  scientific  investigation  and  publicity,  the  hydra- 
headed  character  of  the  evil  has  shown  the  necessity  of  extra-her- 
culean efforts  which  would  tax  the  ability  of  that  hero,  the  accom- 
plishment of  whose  twelve  labors  entitled  him  to  a  well-earned 
immortality. 
Originating  as  it  did  in  the  spring  of  1905,  backed  by  the 
American  Medical  Association,  with  a  special  department  in  the 
official  journal  of  the  Association  to  give  its  findings  publicity, 
the  first  blow  that  was  struck  was  aimed  at  an  evil  which  affected 
both  physician  and  patient — the  list  of  acetanilid  mixtures  which 
previous  to  that  time  had  been  masquerading  in  fancied  security 
under  high-sounding  titles  and  accompanied  by  extravagant  and  for 
the  most  part  baseless  claims.  The  publishing  of  the  facts  in  the 
cases  of  such  preparations  as  ammonol,  antikamnia,  phenalgin,  sala- 
cetin  and  others  directed  the  attention  of  the  entire  medical  pro- 
1  Read  before  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  November,  1906. 
