288 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharni. 
Jime,  1911. 
Patent  Medicines  and  Price  Protection. — An  unusual 
amount  of  publicity  has  been  given  to-  the  Supremie  Court  decision 
in  connection  with  the  direct  contract  price  ])rotcction  plan  of  the 
Dr.  Miles  Medicine  Company. 
The  publicity  that  has  been  given  to  the  decision  in  the  lay 
journals  cannot  be  said  to  be  creditable  to  or  of  advantage  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  drug  trade  generally.  The  Druggists  Circular 
(May,  191 1,  p.  238),  in  commenting  on  the  evident  tendency  of 
the  proprietary  medicine  branch  of  the  retail  drug  business  says : 
"  The  retail  drug  trade  has  many  heavy  loads  to  carry  at  best ; 
it  should  not  unnecessarily  handicap  itself  by  appearing  as  a  sup- 
porter and  defender  of  the  makers  of  nostrums  whose  sale  is  re- 
garded as  '  contrary  to  public  policy.' 
Proprietary  Medicines  in  the  United  States. — W.  A.  Puck- 
ner,  in  an  article  published  in  ''Progress/'  (London,  England,  April, 
191 1 ),  discusses  the  proprietary  medicine  situation  in  the  United 
States,  and  points  out  that  in  many  respects  we  in  this  country 
are  far  ahead  of  England  and  some  of  the  continental  countries  in 
combating  the  proprietary  medicine  evil.  This  is  particularly  true 
of  proprietary  medicines  supplied  through  physicians.  Even  the 
leading  medical  journals  in  Great  Britain  and  on  the  continent  of 
Europe  generally,  accept  advertisements  of  the  patent  medicine  type 
of  proprietaries,  while  in  the  United  States  many  if  not  all  of  the 
medical  journals  have  eliminated  from  their  advertising  pages  at 
least  the  worst  of  this  type  of  preparations. 
Coca  Cola  Case. — An  unusual  amount  of  space  has  been  de- 
voted in  American  drug  journals  to  the  discussion  of  the  now 
famous  coca  cola  case.  The  Druggists  Circular  (May,  191 1,  v.  55, 
p.  274)  reports  that  Judge  Sanborn,  who  was  conducting  the  trial, 
decided  that  the  Government  had  failed  to  establish  an  actual 
violation  of  the  letter  of  the  food  and  drugs  act  by  the  coca  cola 
manufacturers,  and  dismissed  the  case.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
features  of  the  trial  was  the  large  array  of  expert  witnesses  on 
each  side.  The  case  fell  through,  seemingly,  because  of  a  confusion 
in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  prosecuting  witnesses  between  what 
the  law  actually  prohibited  and  what  they  thought  it  ought  to 
prohibit. 
N.N.R. — To  insure  a  more  wide-spread  distribution  of  N.N.R. 
the  American  Medical  Association  has  included  a  reprint  of  this 
publication  as  a  supplement  to  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical 
