Proprietary Remedies Research Articles

UNWARRANTED USE OF PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGIER CHEMICAL COMPANY

To the Editor: —A few days ago I received in my mail an advertisement of an emulsion of cod liver oil, made by the Angier Chemical Company, Boston. My photograph is on the cover of the advertisement and my name under it. No explanation is given. The inference may be that I am connected with the exploitation of this emulsion. The truth is that this is the first time I ever heard of it; I do not know where the photograph was secured and never gave permission for its use. It is, to say the least, an unwarrantable invasion of privacy, but it also lays me open to suspicion of being interested in the sale of a proprietary remedy. The advertisement has been widely circulated and apparently sent simultaneously to all parts of the country, so that any protest which might be made would come too late. I wish nevertheless

PROPRIETARY REMEDIES

Medical Journal of AustraliaVolume 1, Issue 13 p. 320-321 Leading Article PROPRIETARY REMEDIES First published: 01 March 1925 https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1925.tb38715.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume1, Issue13March 1925Pages 320-321 RelatedInformation

Food Preparations and Proprietary Remedies

Medical Journal of AustraliaVolume 1, Issue 14 p. 271-272 Article Food Preparations and Proprietary Remedies First published: 01 April 1921 https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1921.tb47844.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume1, Issue14April 1921Pages 271-272 RelatedInformation

HOUSE ORGAN THERAPEUTICS

To the Editor: —My mail is frequently cluttered with pseudo-scientific data from various manufacturers of proprietary remedies which contain as much real scientific information as the Police Gazette . I am enclosing a sample page of such a periodical. The article has been so cleverly worded in the first paragraph, as to impress the unthinking with the idea that sodium cacodylate is superior to arsphenamin, when we know in reality that sodium cacodylate has been proved practically worthless in syphilis ( vide Venarsen). One case is reported, in which twenty injections of sodium cacodylate were administered intravenously, from October 23 to December 14. On December 18, a Wassermann test proved negative, it had been strongly positive on October 20, but during the same interval from October 23 to December 14, the patient had been taking by mouth Ricord pills each containing half a grain of yellow iodid of mercury; granted that he

The Unscientific Prescribing of Complex Pharmacopeial Mixtures

To the Editor: —Dr. Osborne's criticism and condemnation of certain pharmacopeial mixtures (The Journal, Oct. 4, 1913, p. 1289) will undoubtedly be appreciated by the thoughtful and careful physician. If it is unscientific to prescribe ready-made patented or proprietary remedies when their exact composition is unknown to us, why is it not equally unscientific to use complex official preparations; some of the ingredients of which we generally do not remember? The fact that we usually know the therapeutic use of the preparation as a whole and its dose is not enough to justify our prescribing it. Every dose of medicine which the doctor gives his patient to swallow should have all its ingredients carefully considered and passed on by the prescriber. This can hardly be done with complex ready-made preparations, as the doctor seldom remembers their exact composition. Just the other day, while in a drug-store in my neighborhood, I

THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL ON PHARMACY AND CHEMISTRY

I do not need to offer reasons for the existence of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association. We all of us know the deplorable state of things that led to its establishment. When lay journals could show that in centers of learning approximately one-half of the prescriptions filled were for proprietary remedies; when it was likewise evident that in nearly all instances these proprietary remedies were supervised as to their actual composition, their activity or potency, and all other important facts, by no one who was disinterested, and that we wera dependent on the manufacturer or agent for all knowledge regarding them; and when it had already been shown of many of those that had been examined that a part or all the statements mede regarding them were more or less completely false, it was quite clear that we could not maintain the honor of

CASE OF POISONING BY HEADACHE POWDERS (SHAC).

Relative to the article inThe Journal 1 on Steam's headache cure (Shac), I report the following case of poisoning as the result of the use of this preparation by a patient who recently came under my care: History. —Mrs. S., aged 45, who had often suffered from headache, but had never previously taken any proprietary remedies for its relief, was induced to take a Steam's headache wafer by her daughter who had been using them. About half an hour after taking it she began to feel faint and dizzy, and in another half hour had lapsed into total unconsciousness. Examination. —When seen the patient was still unconscious. The face was somewhat cyanotic, skin was moist, pupils were normal, respiration was slow and shallow, pulse was of fairly good quality though increased in frequency; the pulmonary second sound was greatly accentuated. Treatment. —Under full doses of strychnin and atropin hypodermatically,

THE PHYSICIAN'S CONNECTION WITH PROPRIETARY REMEDIES.

An important ethical principle attaches to the physician's relations to proprietary remedies. These remedies may be of two kinds. First, remedies whose composition is disclosed and which are true to the formulas or names by which they are known. Such remedies become proprietary articles by reason of invention, discovery or purchase. There is another kind of proprietary remedy which becomes so by reason of secrecy. As a rule these latter kind do not contain any new principle or substance, but make use of well-known remedial agents, simple or mixed in a more or less haphazard way, and to which some fancy or trade name is given. It is easy to see that a proprietary remedy may in itself as a remedial agent be good, bad or indifferent. There is no reason to doubt the fact that the activity of any drug or remedy will be as great when administered in

Green's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine and Surgery.

This work is at once a dictionary of medical terms and an encyclopedia of medical science. The encyclopedic articles are those of the "Encyclopedia Medica" brought down to date by the addition of bracketed paragraphs where recent advances in medical knowledge have rendered it necessary. These articles are written by some of the leaders of British medicine and must be accorded authoritative rank. The dictionary articles are mainly the work of the editor, J. W. Ballantyne, and consist of definitions of medical terms, cross references to the more extensive articles where the subject is treated in detail, or, in short articles descriptive of medicines, etc. Proprietary remedies are described briefly without reference to their manufacturers. The information thus given will be useful. If the other volumes maintain the grade set by these two the work will prove a useful addition to encyclopedias of medicine. The work is well printed and

PHARMACOPEIAL OR PROPRIETARY PREPARATIONS: WHICH?

The medical profession is confronted with the difficult task of providing an effective method of checking the practice in vogue with many of its members of prescribing and recommending various proprietary remedies, many of which are most fraudulent. It is sometimes difficult to draw hard-and-fast lines regarding what really constitutes an ethical preparation in contradistinction to a so-called nostrum. It is not good practice to condemnin toto, with one stroke, all proprietary preparations, for undoubtedly ethical, nonethical and even many nostrums possess some therapeutic properties, since in the composition of most of them certain well-known drugs are used Irrespective of the composition and therapeutic value of the medicament, the medical profession brands as nostrums all which make claims to possess curative properties wholly at variance with well-known laws of drug administration. At times the physician is greatly perplexed and confused by the vast array of preparations which are offered,

The Physician and the Pharmacopeia.

New York, Feb. 18, 1906. To the Editor: —I thank you for your courtesy in printing my letter with the above title in your pages (February 17, p. 526). Your answer, however, requires a reply on my part. You say: We do not believe anyone suggests that we should be limited to Pharmacopeial preparations. And further you make the statement: Our correspondent, like too many others, has set up a straw man to knock down. Now, I am not given to setting up straw men, and I am not very likely to make absurd statements, when the subject of proprietary remedies is under discussion, as I have studied the question from all sides, in all its phases, and at a time when too many who show now such commendable zeal on the subject were an absolute terra incognita . I could name you a dozen good, but ignorant men, who just

THE PHYSICIAN AND THE PHARMACOPEIA.

It looks as though we were to have a reaction in the medical profession from the use of proprietary remedies and polysyllabic compounds to the employment of the simple but officinal drugs and compounds of the United States Pharmacopeia. It can not be denied that too many physicians are unfamiliar with that valuable work. Created by the medical and pharmaceutical professions, it has always been recognized by the pharmacist as a reliable and official guide, but to the physician it has been too often an unknown work and one seldom found on his book-shelves. Wilbert,¹in a timely article, lays some of the blame for this unfortunate condition to the enormous increase in proprietary medicines, which have become, he says, an unmitigated nuisance. He notes with satisfaction, however, the return on the part of the ablest medical men to the use of the simpler but more efficient and safer

INCONSISTENCY OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL.

Elsewhere we have quoted the views of the<i>British Medical Journal</i>in regard to "the plague of circulars," and the usurpation of therapeutic teaching by the makers of drugs. It is not a little astonishing, however, to find in the advertising pages of the same issue of that publication the advertisement of the firm and the identical article whose circular drew forth the eloquent comment of our contemporary. Further investigation of its advertising pages suggests that the British Medical Association's journal is not ready to join in the movement to suppress the present evil features of the proprietary trade. In its advertising pages appear advertisements of several products that we are sure would not bear critical investigation. While objecting to the flood of circulars from American pharmacists, our contemporary clearly has no evident objection to the influence of American cash in payment for the advertising of American proprietary remedies, some

The Control of Proprietary Remedies.

The Control of Proprietary Remedies.

A STUDY OF PROPRIETARY MEDICINE ADVERTISEMENTS.

In a previous paper2I called attention to the most prevalent names of diseases, ailments, and symptoms found in the advertisements of patent medicines in the newspapers, and to their significance. Since then I have traced the subject through a number of medical journals and I now desire to give a few notes on the subject. If we take a broad view of the matter we will find no abrupt transition between the advertisements of patent medicines in the newspapers and those of proprietary remedies in the medical journals. Although the extremes are marked, yet they shade off into each other, in fact they overlap. Some newspapers have a higher standard than some so-called medical journals; there is less quackery. Lately we have heard much of medical journals decrying advertisements of patent medicines in the newspapers and yet they make no attempt to purge their own ranks. If we say the public is gullible and is induced to buy worthless patent medicines

The Abuse of Proprietary Remedies.

Paris, Ill., March 10, 1905. To the Editor: —A few days ago I received a pamphlet gotten out by a proprietary medicine firm, containing an editorial from theVermont Medical Monthly, attempting to justify the use of secret remedies. We are not surprised to find such articles in some so-called medical journals, but expect better things from the official organ of a state medical society. Some physicians throw secret remedy circulars into the waste paper basket at once, but I examine them, because some are well written, and because I enjoy separating the true from the false statements which they contain. After giving the subject a good deal of thought I have come to the conclusion that any physician who prescribes a secret remedy is not only very foolish, but does great harm to the community in which he pretends to practice medicine. He is like the physician who, when

THE ABUSE OF PROPRIETARY MEDICINES.

Two weeks ago we pointed out that the principal functions of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry will consist in passing on the ethical merits of proprietary remedies from the pharmaceutical and chemical point of view. The next step lies with the medical profession. It is the duty of every physician to realize this and to assist in reducing the indiscriminate employment of products that are at all secret in their composition; for their present enormous use is a reflection on the acumen and the common sense of the profession as a whole. The reason there is so much of this prescribing of proprietary remedies, the vast majority of which are secret, is not hard to discover. First, there is an ever-increasing tendency to abandon the old and tried preparations. There seems to be an inherent tendency in all things to assume that the new is necessarily superior to the

The Relation of the Physician to Proprietary Remedies.

St. Louis, Dec. 13, 1904. <h3>To the Editor:</h3> —In your issue of December 3, under the heading "The Relation of the Physician to Proprietary Remedies," Dr. William J. Robinson indirectly assails the integrity of two houses with which I am connected. I feel it my duty to call your attention to a number of errors and gross misrepresentations, and in justice to these concerns, reputable manufacturers and patrons of your advertising pages for fifteen years, you should place this matter in its proper light before your readers. I would not undertake to answer this article as a whole, because its labored efforts are apparent and its inconsistency answers itself. Nor would I take the time to correct any statement emanating from Dr. Robinson were it not given space inThe Journalof the American Medical Association. I do not question the right of Dr. Robinson or of any physician to

Discussion on Proprietary Remedies.

Philadelphia, Dec. 5, 1904. <h3>To the Editor:</h3> —On page 1680 ofThe Journalof the American Medical Association I am quoted as stating that eucain "is probably not worth anything." I trust that you will publish the statement that I had no intention whatever of singling out in the discussion eucain, and of stating that "it is probably not worth anything," for I have never believed this.

POISONING BY WOOD ALCOHOL.

With the kind assistance of the profession in the United States and Canada, we have been able to report the following instances of methyl alcohol intoxication, most of them hitherto unpublished. The list of deaths and cases of blindness following the ingestion of Columbian and other forms of wood alcohol, as well as methylated Jamaica ginger, lemon extract, bay rum, cologne water, witch hazel, essence of peppermint, essence of lemon, etc., not to mention all sorts and kinds of other official, domestic and proprietary remedies into which alcohol enters, has lately grown to alarming proportions. This record of death and blindness has been made in recent years only, since the cheap, deodorized methyl alcohol [untaxed, retail price 50 cents a gallon; ethyl alcohol, taxed, retail price $2.60 a gallon] has been put on the market. Wood alcohol and methylated spirits made by the old processes subserved useful as well