ON 
IMPORTATIONS 
OF IODINE. 
199 
required in a chemical preparation, purchased and designed 
for a different purpose — for assisting the inquiries of science, 
or for enriching the products of art ? To the allegation 
made to the daguerreotype artist, for example, that his im- 
portation of wet iodine (supposing it to be really desirable) 
was not a u proper" medicine, he might very reasonably 
reply that it could not be an improper one, since it was no 
medicine at all.* Might not the principle, rigidly enforced 
be extended to the rejection of all crude drugs, or chemical 
materials? in other words to the almost complete suppres- 
sion of our chemical manufactures ? it being well known 
that the fine and high priced preparations cannot be advan- 
tageously employed in obtaining chemical products, and 
would not give these products any superiority if they could 
be thus employed. 
On the other hand, it may be urged that to allow the dis- 
tinction advocated, and make alleged destination the crite- 
rion of admissibility for drugs of doubtful character, would 
open the widest door to a fraudulent evasion — if it would 
not almost defeat the very object — of the law ; that it would 
afford the dishonest importer as full opportunities as 
could be desired, of gathering from abroad, and vending his 
inert or noxious drugs, at comparatively little risk ; — that 
the enforcement of the penalty, if he saw fit to forfeit his 
bond, would constitute a poor reparation of the injury the 
community might sustain by his impositions; and that on 
the whole, the interests of the public would probably suffer 
less by an unjust restriction, than by an undue extension 
of the freedom of trade. 
A question of much greater delicacy and uncertainty, 
arises as to the degree of purity which should be demanded 
in iodine, to fairly meet the requisition of the act of Con- 
* The manufacturer of quinine might offer the same justification of 
a low priced, or damaged article of Peruvian bark. And yet either 
article would have to be condemned, with the sole explanation, that 
although best adapted to the objects of the respective importers, it 
would be unsuitable for another very different purpose. 
