PATENT MEDICINES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1430, 3 May 1912, Page 5

PATENT MEDICINES.

;. : r A ROUND DENUNCIATION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) Ghristchurch, May 2. In an address to the members of the Philosophical Society, Mr. A. M. Wright, discussing the subject of tho chemist and his. relations to the community, referred at, some length to patent medicines which m€t with short shrift at his hands. He stated foundly that not one patent medicino on the market—and he knew the formula of most of them—deserved its reputation. He assured his heaTers that one much-advertised remedy consisted of 961 pirts of water. A certain elixir had been ascertained to be a, mixtura of sulphate of iron and Epsom salts, which the speaker characterised as an edifying mixture of faith, and works. The remedy' for this state, of things, Mr. Wright held, was the creation, by means of school education in the first place of a - public opinion firmly oppAsed to quackery, and determined to class all tampering with the food of the community among criminal offences. Why did we test and analyse our coal and neglect tho food we at?? If chemical analysis of onr food were insisted on there would be less inefficiency, less sickness, anil less mortality'in the community.