32S 
SPURIOUS CHEMICALS. 
The greatest possible vigilance and care are requisite on 
the part of those supplying compounds, such as we are 
here noticing, for medicinal use. Some of these compounds 
have been but little studied by Chemists, and the means 
of distinguishing them by chemical tests is not always com- 
plete or satisfactory. If manufacturers are disposed to be 
dishonest, it is sometimes difficult to detect all their fraudu- 
lent practices ; and a single individual may thus entail dis- 
credit upon hundreds of unconscious dupes, who become the 
venders or dispensers of spurious or sophisticated articles. 
The injury thus inflicted on medical science is of a very 
serious nature, for what becomes of the value of medical 
experience with reference to the action of remedies, if no 
dependence can be placed upon their identity ? A physi- 
cian sees an account of the great benefits which have been 
derived from the administration of valerianate of zinc or 
iron in some very troublesome complaints. He prescribes 
the remedy, but after a lengthened trial finds it to be unavail- 
ing, and accordingly he discards it from his Materia 
Medica, unless, perchance, as in the present instance, it is 
discovered that the remedy employed was entirely different 
from that prescribed, and then the dispenser and the whole- 
sale vender are alike involved in the mortification and dis- 
grace of having obstructed the efforts of science to relieve 
the sufferings of the afflicted. Is it not too often the case 
that the skill and learning of the physician are stultified 
by practices such as it has now been our painful duty to 
record and to reprobate ? 
It was but the other day that a case came within our 
knowledge in which a medical man, being desirous of try- 
ing the action of different anaesthetic agents, made a series 
of experiments with Dutch liquid. Having complained of 
the price charged for the first specimen which he obtained, 
further supplies were procured from a different source ; but 
after devoting much time to the investigation of the medici- 
nal action of the remedy, with the intention of publishing 
