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195
side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields." Incidentally, it was was DAVID HARTLEY, the soap fiend, who was instrumental 1in obtaining this grant for Mrs. STEVENS, and it is 1sad to reflect that he himself died of the stone. The 1Parliament of England went out of the quack medi- cine business many years ago, and the moral outlook (
has been improved to that extent ; but it is humil- i
iating to have to admit that beyond ceasing to fencourage quackery no Government in this country has done anything to discourage our Jessops or to iprotect medicine-taking dupes from medicine-making pretenders. Let us make our position quite clear. 1
We do not condemn proprietary medicines en bloc, 4
while we deplore the license enjoyed by the vendorsof worthless remedies. Here we feel it to be our duty to i
point to the need which exists for some restraint onthe zeal of those engaged in the traffic. Just beforethe war there was a Bill before Parliament whichaimed at the prevention of some of the abuses whichare part and parcel of this unwholesome business,and there were good prospects of the measure passinginto law, notwithstanding the several vested interestswhich it affected. The Bill was based upon therecommendations of a Royal Commission (publishedas a supplement to THE LANCET, Jan. 10th, 1925),and by its main provisions it sought to prevent thesale and advertisement of " cures " for incurablediseases, and to prohibit the making of unjust claims.as to what a secret remedy could do. It attackedonly the obviously fraudulent side of the industry,and left open for exploitation by drug makers,enthusiastic for their own preparations-an even
wider field than is available for cultivation in anyother civilised country. We would that the presentGovernment, despite its obvious lack of time in whichto meet its commitments, would take this Bill outof its pigeon-hole and at least give it an airing. Nohonest man would stand to lose anything if it becamelaw, and no hypochondriac would be stinted undulyin the practice of his hobby. The secret remedy evilis rapidly increasing in this country because ours isthe only nation which does nothing to check it.Profits are being made among us by aliens throughmethods which if employed in the land of their birthwould render them liable to segregation as enemies tosociety. This is a preposterous state of affairs. Masspro-duction, big newspaper circulations, and ever-wideningof the channels of distribution are continuing to spreadthe evil to such an extent that it may soon becomea national vested interest, and as such be almost impos-sible to destroy. Our staple industries are in a badway, unemployment and shortage of money are acute ;and yet the turnover of quack medicines is biggerthan ever it was, and many people are spending onrubbish what they ought to be spending on food.Our administrators should look into this matter;the spade work has already been done, and, as wehave said, the appropriate Minister will find waitingin his Department a considered measure which if
passed into law would afford some protection for theignorant and quell an abuse which humiliates thiscountry in the eyes of the world.We do not think that pharmacists as a class would
oppose the desired legislation, notwithstanding thatit is through their hands that proprietary articlesand secret remedies are passed to the ultimate con-sumer. In a recent statement, which has beenaccorded wide publicity, the President of the Pharma-ceutical Society advised chemists to set their facesagainst the sale of drugs through automatic machines.There are obvious reasons why such a method ofdistribution should be condemned, and one of
the Ireasons stressed by the President was that the employ-
ment of automatic machines by chemists detracts.rom "the personal value of their services to the
public." This is true enough, and it is none the lessrue that a pharmacist who sells to the public a ready-nade packet of a compounded drug of whose ingre-lients he is kept in ignorance by the manufacturer.s also doing something which detracts from the per-sonal value of his services. In the one case it is the
pharmacist who employs an automatic machine andIn the other it is the proprietor of the advertisednostrum who employs the machine ; in the one casethe machine is made of wood or metal and in th&)ther case the machine is an educated human being.What personal service does the pharmacist renderto the public when he hands over to a purchaser abox of pills he knows nothing about ? Quite obviouslyhe is rendering a disservice if he knows that the pills,cannot possibly do what the advertisements claimfor them. We regard the pronouncement of Mr.MORETON-PARRY valuable both in the interest of
pharmaceutical chemists and the public ; carried to its
Logical conclusion this statement must have a wideinfluence on the distribution side of the secret remedyindustry. The time may come, and we hope it is,not far distant, when British pharmacists will comeinto line with their Dutch confreres. As was recordedin our last issue (p. 168), at the instigation of thechemists in Holland a commission has been framedfor the purpose of controlling the advertisements ofmedicinal preparations. This is highly commendableon the part of the Dutch chemists, and we hope thatthe President of the Pharmaceutical Society willcarry his campaign against the automatic distribu-tion of drugs a step further by advising action bythe members of the Society, over which he presides.so judiciously, on the lines of the Dutch programme.
Annotations."Ne quid nimis."
VITAL STATISTICS FOR 1929.
THE Registrar-General has issued a provisionalstatement of the figures for birth-rate, death-rate,.and infantile mortality during the year 1929.
The smaller towns are those with a population in 1921 of20,000-50,000. The death-rate for England and Wales(which is based on the estimated population for 1929) relates tothe whole population, but that for London and the two groupsof towns (based on the 1928 estimate) to the civil populationonly. Birth-rate and death-rate are per 1000 population,infant mortality-rate per 1000 live births.
The Registrar-General remarks that the birth-rateis 0-4 per 1000 below that of 1928 and is the lowestrecorded. The death-rate is 1-7 per 1000 above thatof 1928, a rise practically confined to the first quarterof the year, and due to the epidemic of influenzain the spring and the severe weather in that period.The infant mortality-rate has increased from 65 to74 per 1000 live births, a rise probably due to thesame causes. These provisional figures, which are not
likely to require substantial modification, have beenissued for the information of medical officers of health.