164 
DR. EDWARDS' REPORT. 
gallantry and firmness. It is not a medicine, and he who 
imports it as such commits a fraud, designed to be prevented 
by the act of 26th of June last. I am informed by good 
authority that no other market is now open for this article, 
as all nations exclude it on account of the impositions re- 
sulting from its use. 
An elevation in the standard of purity and strength is 
manifest in all the recent importations, but particularly con- 
spicuous in the leading and most necessary articles in the 
practice of medicine. Opium, morphine, quinine, iodine, 
hydriodate of potass, calomel, blue pill mass, medicinal ex- 
tracts, cinchona, rhubarb root, jalap root, scammony, senna, 
gum gamboge and other medicinal gums, are decidedly 
improved in quality. The chemical preparations are now 
imported of a satisfactory character; properly labelled, &c. 
That adulterations of medicines, to a very considerable, 
extent, will be carried on in this country, none will deny, 
Had Congress the power to prevent it, by a general law, 
it might be avoided. The general government has done all 
in its power, and it is incumbent on the several States, by 
special statute, to render penal the conduct that endangers 
the life and health of the citizens. No one can believe that 
adulterations here would be carried to the extent practised 
by foreigners. It is scarcely presumable that all the drug- 
gists will be engaged in a traffic so nefarious. The rivalry 
of business, the pride of the profession, and the higher and 
nobler motives of humanity, will be equal to the ingenuity 
and invention of the dishonest, and will effect its exposure 
If this law be faithfully complied with, the house that sells 
an adulterated and spurious medicine, must needs have 
made it ; and the watchfulness of the profession, together 
with the numerous medical journals, jealous of the interests 
and informed of the rights of the medical profession, will 
proclaim the fraud. Law and public opinion will point to 
the remedy. The law requiring all medicinal agents im- 
ported to be pure and of an acknowledged standard, will 
