Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
Oct.,  191S. 
Editorial. 
683 
has  been  decreed  in  the  various  Congressional  enactments  since 
1862. 
For  some  unknown  reason  the  drug  trade  has  been  singled  out 
for  an  unjust  burden  of  taxation.  In  the  recent  Congressional  en- 
actments no  other  class  of  business  men  have  been  so  heavily  bur- 
dened by  taxation,  in  proportion  to  the  business  done,  as  have  the 
druggists.  The  War  Revenue  Measure,  approved  October  3,  191 7, 
fixed  a  tax  on  alcohol  withdrawn  for  non-beverage  purposes  at 
$2.20  per  proof  gallon.  The  revenue  bill  now  under  consideration 
by  Congress  proposes  to  make  this  tax  on  distilled  alcohol  for  non- 
beverage  purposes  $4.40  per  proof  gallon.  This  means  that  the  tax 
on  alcohol  used  in  medicinal  preparations  will  be  $8.36  per  gallon. 
Medicines  are  rightly  classified  along  with  food  and  clothing  as 
among  the  prime  necessities  of  life,  and  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
that  any  underlying  principle  or  war  necessity  would  dictate  a  pol- 
icy of  excessive  taxation  on  any  of  these. 
Drugs  are  collected  from  all  over  the  world,  and  the  increased 
war  demands  for  many  of  these  and  the  existing  difficulties  of  trans- 
portation, shortage  of  labor,  and  the  high  cost  of  the  ingredients, 
including  the  solvents  necessary,  have  all  tended  toward  making 
the  cost  of  all  medicines  abnormally  high,  and  some  of  those  most 
needed  are  beyond  the  means  of  many  of  our  people. 
Alcohol  is  indispensable  in  the  production  of  most  medicines, 
and  the  proposition  for  still  further  increasing  the  cost  of  medicines 
by  doubling  the  excise  tax  on  the  alcohol  used  is  indefensible  as  an 
economic  principle.  This  question  is  one  that  must  finally  be 
brought  home  to  every  consumer,  and  those  afflicted  by  disease  or 
injury  must  in  the  final  analysis  bear  the  burden  of  this  tax. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  any  other  nation  would  place  such  a  bur- 
den of  taxation  upon  those  who  must  necessarily  consume  medicines. 
A  pertinent  question  to  be  considered  by  each  member  of  Con- 
gress is  whether  he  is  prepared  to  defend  before  his  constituents 
such  an  excessive  tax  on  materials  essential  to  the  preservation  of 
life  and  health — a  tax  that  is  contrary  to  all  humanitarian  ideas  and 
consideration  for  the  urgent  needs  of  the  sick  and  indigent.  Is  any 
one  ready  to  declare  that  the  exigencies  of  this  nation  demands 
such  callous  and  inhuman  treatment  of  our  invalids  ?  We  are  pass- 
ing through  one  of  the  worst  epidemics  of  sickness  that  has  ever 
afflicted  any  nation,  and  many  of  the  common  remedies,  such  as 
sweet  spirit  of  nitre  used  in  the  treatment  of  this  fever  in  enor- 
