QUACK MEDICINES.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 278, 23 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

QUACK MEDICINES.

The law of England, which is quite sufficiently severe upon many common methods of obtaining money by falso preis not only strangely indifferent with regard to others, but oven appears to full short of fulfiling the reasonable demands of ignorant people to be protected against certain forms of fraud. A man who soils to some simpleton a worthless ring' by moans of a declaration that it is precious, is properly treated as a rogue and a vagabond ; but a man who puts a little of any cheap and common drug into a bottle of flavoured water, announces that it will cure all disoascs, and offers it for sale at a thousand timos its value, is not only premittod to escape scot freo, but is oven taken under the special protection of the Chancellor of tho Exchequer, and is granted a monopoly of sale for his rubbish in oxchaugo for a contribution to the national revenue. We havo hoard it stated, on the basis of tho amount of duty paid for quack mediciues, that they are purohasod in tho Quoen's dominions to the extent of three million pounds sterling annually ; and the statement is at least an approximation to the truth. Tho reputation of any one of these preparations is usually ephemeral; and hence it has become a commonpractiee for tho " proprietor," as soon as a certain popularity has been obtained by advertising, to dispos3 of his " property " accept shares, a.nd relieving himself as speedily as possible of all responsibility for his compound. The unfortunate shareholders soon find that the demand for their commodity has passed away, but are seldom on this account less disposed to invest in the next nostrum which may cone into the market.

It is strange how deeply the power of believing in quacks and in their preparations is rooted in the English race. Its manifestations date from an early period of our history; and, in comparatively recent, times, have furnished an endless theme for satire. Goldsmith, for example in his "Citizen of the World," declnrcs that thero must be some-thing strangely obstinate in an English patient who refuses the health which is everywhere offered to him on such easy terms. " Does ho take a pride in being bloated with dropsy ? Does he find pleasure in the alternations of an intermittent fever ? Or feel as much satisfaction in nursing up his gout, ashefoundp'easure in acquiring it?" Of the inventors of tho innumerable specifics, he tells us that many " have spent a great part of their lives unconscious of any latent excellence (in the art of healing) till a bankruptcy or a residence in jail havo called their miraculous powers into exertion. .And so the game continues, resting upon the notorious fact that tho British public will swallow anything, or will rub themselves with anything, the efficacy of which is set forth in announcements sufficiently conspicuous and continued, but resting on no known authority, and supported by no tittle of evidence. Many of the most widely advertised quacks medicines are prepared from prescriptions which have been given by physicians for actual cases, and are capable of doing as much mischief to persons for whom they aro unsuitable as goid under opposite conditions. They "manage these matters better in France," where the sale of proprietary remedies is ouly permitted under strict supervision from the Academy of Medicine, and where tha public is therefore much better protected than with us. There was an amusing lawsuit a few years ago, in which the late Mr Hollo way, of pill aud ointment notoriety, was the defendant. He had been expressing his great desire to obtain a licence for the sale of his "remedies " in Prince, and the plaintiff in the action undertook to procure this licence for a specified fee. Ho complied with certain formalities, and obtained a licence for the salo of La pommade elite JLollowiuj, described as consisting of so much beeswax, so much resin, and so much suet, or similar harmless materials, A licence which disclosed tha simple composition of the stuff was useless to the vendor, and Mr lioUoway refused to pay tho promised foe until a judgment against him was obtained. We trust, whenever matters medical come again under the consideration of Parliament, that our own public analysts will bo empowered to dial with advertised preparations in a somewhat similiar manner aud to relieve the country from tho disgraco of accepting, as any pottion of its revenue, a contribution from tho profits of unscrupulous vendors. —Hospital.