Marking of Patent Medicines

Abstract

WHEN the question of withdrawing Medicine Stamp Duties was debated recently in the House of Commons, it was clear that there was a general feeling that proprietary medicines should not be freed from all restrictions, but should be subjected to effective control. Some of them are fraudulent, their advertisements encourage healthy people to think they are ill, and unhealthy people to postpone taking medical advice until it is too late, and some of them are poisons. The recent passing of effective legislation in the United States was largely due to the fact that seventy-three people were killed by an elixir containing diethylene glycol, just at the time when the matter was being debated in Congress. It would be unfortunate if another such accident were to occur in Great Britain before effective measures were introduced. Reforms of various kinds are being widely discussed. Prof. A. J. Clark, in a little tract published last year under the title “Patent Medicines” said: “The clearest line for the Government to take would be to say that it did not wish to tax any remedy that was beneficial to the health of the people, and wished to suppress all those that were useless and harmful.” This would imply regulations such as those now enacted in the United States, where new remedies can only be sold when they have been officially approved. Lord Horder, in his speech in the House of Lords, stressed the harm that is done by misleading advertisements and recommended that measures for the control of quack medicines should form part of the campaign for national fitness.