Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-09-01
THE ADUL terra TON OF
MEDICINES

The great importance of protecting
drugs from authorizations, substitutions
and detericrations must be manifest. to
everybody. If the physician cannot
RELY on the quality and strength of the
medicinal drugs be prescribes, if there
is no standard for them maintained by
all apothecaries, he is, of course. very
much at sea in his treatment OF disease.
Take the case of opium and rhubarb,
for instance, two drugs of the most
common and extensive use. If the
opium and opium preparations in the
market are of variable quality and of
uncertain strength, doses which pro-
duce the effects the physician desires
when standard articles are used may
rather aggravate the symptoms he
would alleviate, and bring pain instead
of quiet to his patient, when the opium
is adulterated and weakened by sub
stitutions. Rhubarb, when of the
standard quality, produces first and
a secondary effect which are both OF
value, but when it is poor and adul-
terated, only the first effect can be OBJ
tanned.
1t is true that in all our large cities
there are many reputable druggists
who may be trusted to send out only
the best quality of drugs. 80 far as
they can obtain it. But the physician
cannot always know that his prescrip-
tion is to be filed by one of these
druggists. Moreover, inferior drugs
are often sold to the country apothe-
carries, who may have custom which
is more eager for low prices than par
ticular about getting articles OF the
best sort. The buyer is unable to de-
tect the difference in qualities, and
therefore it is easy to palm of inferior
goods upon him. We have in this
country several large manufacturing
pharmacies which are known to almost
every physician, and whose names
give assurance that their preparations
are of the highest merit, but there are
others which turn out goods of an in
different sort to meet the demand for
low prices even at the sacrifice of quail
ity; and that demand is always large.
Mr.. G. Lewis Diehl has just pre-
pared for the National Board OF
Health a very exhaustive report on
deteriorations, adulterations, and sub
stitutions of drugs in the United
States. He presents in it classified
list of the inferiorities and history OF
the business of Justification which are
of much interest. 1t seems that pre-
vious to the passage by Congress, in
1848, Of the law regulating the impor-
tation of drugs, the United States az
forded great market for damaged and
adulterated drugs, sent out by Euro
pean establishments, which collected
and manufactured them especially for
this country. Indeed, DR.. M. l. Bal
lev, the first examiner of drugs ap-
pointed for New York, is authority for
the statement that nearly half of those
imported into New York before the
year l848 were spurious. In one OF
his reports he speaks of certain ex-
tensive manufactorv in Brussels ex-
clusively devoted to the adulteration
and imitation of the most important
medicinal chemicals, all intended for
sale in the United States. The law OF
1s4S shutting out their goods, mem
bers of the firm subsequently trans
ferred their dishonest manufacture to
this country. And as late as 1871
certain wholesale houses were pointed
out by Prof. Remington as regularly
engaged in the business of adultera-
tion.
Powdered drugs offer the best op-
portunities for the mixing of foreign
substances, and formulas for the prep
aration of the falsifed articles are still
in more or less extensive use. Vola-
tile oils are now adulterated to q
shameful extent, and Mr.. E. @. Squibb,
the well-known pharmacist, reports
that of eleven commercial specimens
of ether not one in any way pproach-
ed the official requirements, while
ordinary ether is often quite unclean.
If we run through the long list OF
drugs given by Mr. Diehl, we find
that nearly every one is subject to de-
teriorations due to natural changes for
the worse on account of age or expos
ure, or is liable contain impurities and
concentrations introduced either dur
ing the collection of the drug or by the
process of it manufacture, or is fire.
quently open to suspicion because of
adulterations which are wholly the
work of design. Care must also be
taken by the buyer to guard against
the substitution of other substances,
due sometimes to accident aud some
times to design.
Take q few of the drugs of most
general use in medicine, such as opium,
rhubarb, aloes, and jalap. Our opium
comes from Egypt and Asia Minor,
and, though good article may be OBJ
tanned from respectable dealers, il
varies naturally in its morphia strength
often contains excessive quantities of
vegetable tissues, and is mixed with
earthly and other inorganic matter. 1t
is also adulterated with various kinds
of resinous, saccharine, and mucilagin-
GUS substances. Opium sometimes
contains 20 per cent. Of foreign matter,
chiefly lead, and the powder is adul-
terated to the extent of SO per cent
Besides, much inferior opium is in the
market because of the indiscriminate
sale of "prize goods" by the Govern
ment. As to rhubarb, it is always
more or less difficult to obtain q good
quality of the drug in the market
Rhubarb rejected at our Custom
Houses has been at times returned to
England, where it is ground up with
superior article, and afterwards ad-
mitted as powder. Again, the pow
der is often made here of inferior rhu.
barb, and rendered bright by turmeric;
but select Chinese rhubarb may al
ways be had at advanced prices. Jalar
which comes from Mexico, varies
much in quality, according to the sea-
s0n and the care used in its collection