1 92  Need  for  Patent-Law  Revision.     {Amii\™h  f^m' 
infectious  illnesses :  diphtheria,  pneumonia,  typhus,  scarlet  fever, 
influenza,  septic  infections,  cerebral-spinal  meningitis,  syphilis,  pest, 
cholera  and  tuberculosis;  it  is  also  effective  in  another  kind  of 
disease,  viz.,  goiter."  (Italics  not  in  original.)  The  patent  speci- 
fication states  that  "the  principal  of  these  substances  in  creatinin 
but  offers  no  evidence  whatever  that  this  well-known  chem- 
ical body  has  the  extensive  and  miraculous  powers  claimed  for  it. 
In  publishing  a  notice  of  this  patent  The  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association  (Jan.  3,  1914,  p.  54)  explained: 
"  It  appears  that  the  inventor  is  dead,  and  that  his  estate  took  out  the 
patent.  Since  this  great  benefactor  should  have  been,  by  the  use  of  his  prepa- 
ration, immune  to  practically  all  diseases,  he  must  have  died  of  senility, 
although  this  seems  hardly  to  have  been  the  case." 
and  held : 
"  Assuredly  granting  patents  on  such  claims  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  show 
the  need  of  a  change  in  the  methods  of  granting  patents — at  least  of  the 
methods  governing  the  issuance  of  patents  for  medicinal  products." 
We  submit  that  had  the  department  of  the  government  entrusted 
with  the  enforcement  of  the  federal  Food  and  Drugs  Act  been  con- 
sulted as  to  the  claims  of  this  patent,  it  would  probably  have  ad- 
vised that,  if  the  absurd  and  palpably  fraudulent  claims  set  forth 
in  this  application  for  a  patant  were  made  on  the  label  of  a  prepar- 
tion  of  creatinin  offered  for  sale  in  interstate  commerce  or  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  the  vendor  would  be  prosecuted. 
In  1914  there  was  issued  U.  S.  Patent  No.  1,086,339.  Here  the 
"  inventor  "  declared : 
"It  is  the  object  of  my  invention  to  destroy  parasitic  microorganisms,  par- 
ticularly on  living  tissue  without  injuring  the  latter,  by  progressively  evolving 
sodium  hydroxid  contiguous  to  said  tissue,  from  and  in  a  moist  mixture  of 
calcium  hydroxid,  sodium  carbonate,  aluminum  sulphate  and  boric  acid,  ..." 
In  a  word,  this  patent  apparently  was  granted  for  the  produc- 
tion of  sodium  hydroxid  by  a  chemical  reaction  which  had  been  in 
use  for  several  centuries.  Because  the  patentee  had  twisted  the 
granting  of  this  patent  into  a  quasi-endorsement  of  his  nostrum,  the 
Council's  consideration  of  this  preparation  was  sent  the  Patent  Office 
as  a  protest  against  the  present  law,  which  authorizes  the  granting 
of  patents  on  unproved  and  improbable  medical  claims.  At  that 
time  the  Council  was  informed  by  the  Patent  Office  that  reforms  in 
the  issuance  of  patents  for  medicinal  substances  had  been  instituted, 
