Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
December,  1914.  j 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
nish  the  information  necessary  to  make  State  and  other  local  regula- 
tory measures  operative.  The  text  of  the  bill  as  finally  agreed  upon  in 
the  Conference  Committee  is  acceptable  to  physicians  and  phar- 
macists generally,  though  many  believe  that  it  is  unnecessarily  com- 
prehensive and  will  entail  a  greater  expenditure  of  time  and  money 
to  enforce  than  is  necessary  to  attain  the  objects  aimed  at.  In  the 
event  that  the  Conference  Report  is  agreed  to  by  the  Senate  and  the 
bill  is  signed  by  the  President,  the  new  law  will  become  operative 
on  March  I,  1915. 
Proprietary  Remedies. — The  report  of  the  Select  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons  on  Patent  Medicines  has  been  published  as 
a  separate  volume  of  782  pages,  and  is  now  available  through  the 
book  trade  at  6s.*  yd.,  or,  with  the  somewhat  elaborate  index,  7s.  6d. 
The  book  contains,  in  addition  to  the  findings  of  the  committee,  a 
verbatim  report  of  the  evidence  of  42  witnesses  who  appeared  be- 
fore the  committee  at  the  33  public  sittings  held  from  May  12, 
1913,  to  June  12,  1914.  One  of  the  abuses  commented  on  by  the 
Select  Committee  is  the  fact  that  the  government,  in  a  way,  is  a 
party  to  fraudulent  practices  because  of  the  collecting  of  a  stamp 
duty  on  "  patent  "  medicines  or  secret  nostrums,  which  stamp  carries 
with  it  at  least  the  suggestion  of  recognition  or  endorsement  by  the 
government. 
In  this  connection  pharmacists  in  this  country  are  to  be  com- 
mended for  their  activity  in  opposing  the  imposition  of  a  stamp  tax  on 
patent  medicines.  Many  medical  practitioners  and  pharmacists  feel 
that  such  a  tax  would,  in  a  way,  be  an  endorsement  of  these  prod- 
ucts and  would  give  them  a  standing  not  at  all  in  keeping  with  our 
present-day  knowledge  regarding  the  possibilities  and  limitations  of 
drugs  and  medicines. 
Roemer,  John,  in  a  general  discussion  of  the  patent-medicine 
problem,  expresses  the  opinion  that  pernicious  nostrums  can  be 
consistently  divided  into  six  classes  : 
1.  Those  that  bear  false  statements. 
2.  Those  whose  claims  for  medicinal  virtue  are  exaggerated. 
3.  Those  that  contain  narcotics. 
4.  Those  that  contain  alcohol  in  disguise  as  medicine. 
5.  Those  that  are  exploited  for  venereal  diseases. 
6.  Those  that  are  exploited  by  subterfuge  as  emmenagogues. 
Such  preparations  as  may  be  included  in  the  above  classification 
