A PATENT MEDICINE IN COURT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2475, 31 May 1915, Page 7

A PATENT MEDICINE IN COURT

VENDORS OF "VITADATIO"

PROSECUTED

ALLEGED MISDESCRIPTION

INTERESTING EVIDENCE

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Sydney, May 29. The Crown Prosecutor, under the Pure Food Act, proceeded against Elliott Brothers on the ground of alleged misdescription of the patent medicine known at Vitadatio. The prosecution relied on the statement, printed in a pamphlet sold with the medicine, that it oured Bright's disease, hydatids, stricture, cancer, consumption, ringworm, and paralysis. Expert evidence by Dr. Cooksey showed that Vitadatio contained 2.5 per cent, of proof spirit, also salicylic acid, tannin, gentian, sarsaparilla, and senna or rhubarb.

Dr. Palmer, principal Government Medical Officer, declared that according to this analysis Vitadatio could not curs Bright's disease, hydatids, cancer, or consumption. Ho made the further statement that, with the exception of quinine and mercury, no drug ever oured anybody.

Other doctors supported Dr. Palmer regarding the diseases mentioned.

For the defence, evidence was given in support of cures in Sydney. Arthur Palmer, proprietor of Vitadatio, gave evidence that he was ill for fourteen years in New Zealand, and was treated for dyspepsia, liver, Bright's disease, and pleurisy, and subsequently underwent an operation in Invorcargill which showed that he was full of hydatid tumors. A doctor told him the only medicines which would cure him would also kill him. He tried Vitadatio, and it cured him. He denied Vitadatio contained tannin, rhubarb, senna, sarsaparilla, or gentian. A bottle cost him a shilling, of which the bottle cost twopence. the material threepence, and the labour sevenpence. He declined to give the names of certain herbs which lie said had cost him £20,000 to get from Welber. the original proprietor, but at the Magistrate's request he wrote down their names. The Magistrate found against the defendants, who,, he said, were merely wholesale buyers of Vitadatio. He ordered them to pay a fine of £10 and costs.