256  The  Patent  Medicine  Problem.       (Am  Jour  pim™. 
^  \      June,  1914. 
occurs.  The  error  is  therefore  negative  and  is  too  considerable  to 
be  neglected  even  in  rough  work.  For  example,  the  error  in  an 
experiment  on  ferric  alum  [FeNH4(S04)2  +  12FLO]  amounted  to 
—  8  per  cent. 
Chromium, — A  large  number  of  experiments  was  done  on 
chrome  alum.  The  results  were  much  too  high  and  very  erratic. 
Indications  pointed  to  the  formation  of  chromous  salts. 
Analytical  Department,  Lehn  &  Fink,  New  York. 
THE  PATENT  MEDICINE  PROBLEM.1 
By  M.  I.  Wilbert,  Washington,  D.  C.  . 
The  patent  medicine  problem,  as  it  presents  itself  to  American 
pharmacists  to-day,  is  neither  novel  nor  popular,  and  its  continued 
growth  has  long  since  been  recognized  as  a  menace  to>  the  devel- 
opment of  pharmacy  as  a  .desirable  occupation.  The  business  itself 
has  developed  as  the  joint  off  spring  of  cupidity  and  credulity  and  1 
from  a  very  early  period  has  been  the  one  object  regarding  which 
members  of  the  various  branches  of  the  drug  trade  have  differed 
on  more  frequently  and  more  widely  than  on  any  other. 
While  it  is  generally  recognized  that  the  manufacture,  sale  and 
use  of  so-called  patent  medicines  should  be  considered  primarily 
as  a  public  health  problem,  the  business  from  the  drug  trade  point 
of  view  also  involves  economic  questions  which  cannot  well  be 
ignored  and  which  have,  at  times  at  least,  quite  overshadowed  all 
public  health  considerations.  That  the  economic  feature  of  the 
problem  is  on  the  increase  rather  than  decrease  is  evidenced  by  an 
editorial  in  the  National  Druggist  (1912,  v.  42,  p.  414)  which  asserts 
that  the  number  of  establishments  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
patent  and  proprietary  medicines  in  1899  was  2>r54>  and  in  1909 
was  3,642.  The  value  of  the  products  at  the  factories  in  1899  was 
$88,791,000,  and  in  1909  was  $141,942,000,  an  increase  of  approxi- 
mately 70  per  cent,  in  ten  years. 
Whether  the  public  health  or  the  economic  side  of  the  problem 
is  to  be  given  the  preference  in  the  near  future  is  a  question  that  is 
well  worth  considering,  and  one  which  by  the  recent  action  of  the 
1  Presented  at  a  meeting  of  the  City  of  Washington  branch  of  the  Amer- 
ican Pharmaceutical  Association,  February  18,  1914. 
