Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-09-21
ApuLrERArsp DRUGS.

1t is astonishing how little suspicious
even suspicious people are of the drugs
which they take when they are i'll. They are
quite alive to the prevalence of adultera-
ton In other trades, but they will swallow
medicines hastily fetched from the nearest
chemists without 30 much as a misgiving
that they are not in all respects what they
| profess to be. Yet in nothing is sdultera-
ton so easy and SO profitable as in drugs.
| The taste will sometimes do something to-
ward detecting it in article Of food, but in
medicines the taste is almost powerless.
The patient classes the remedies he is con-
demned to take under the general heads Of
nauseous and not nauseous, and does not
care to draw any finer distinctions
| Genuine drugs are often extremely costly,
SO that the gains which can be
made by substituting other substances
for them may easily be very large.
Yet in no trade are the effects of adultera.
tlon so disastrous as in that of the drug
| gist. Adulterated food or drink may some
times provokedisease but adulterated drugs
are useless to cure it. 1t is impossible to
say in how many cases deaths have been
set down to the violence of the malady, or
to want OF skill on the part of the doctor,
which have really been caused by worth
less medicines. The doctor ordered the
remedies he thought appropriate, and if
actually administered these remedies would
probably have been sufficient to check the
course OF the disease. But what was ad-
ministered was not these remedies, but
| counterfeit of them, and though the patient
did not detect the difference, the disease
did, and the patient died. How to insure
that drugs shall be what they profess to be
Ia one of the most important problems in
practical medicine, and one to the solution
of which very few contributions have yet
been made.
The Nineteenth Conference of Pharma-
ceuticsl Chemists has been sitting this
week at Southampton, and the address of
the President, Mr.. Attfeld, deals very
| thoroughly with this question. Mr.. Att.
field regrets the tendency of the retail
druggist to rely more and more on the
wholesale manufacturer for his supply of
drugs. The public are thus deprived of
the security which their knowledge of the
honesty and skill of the local druggist
| might afford them, and compelled to trust
altogether to the integrity of some firm of
which they know nothing but the name.
Mr.. Atttield points out that this depend
ence of the retail druggist upon the drug
manufacturer cannot in the end be to the
retail druggists interest. In SO far as he
ceases to be q maker as well as distribu-
tor he divests himself of the one quality
for which the public values him. If he
simply cells in small quantities drugs
which he buys in large quantities,
there is no reason why the work
should not be done just as well by
the grocer or the general shopkeeper.
If the whole of the trade is not quick
enough to find this out, part of it will be,
and the result will be seen in the establish.
ment of shops in which drugs are first man.
ufactured and then sold by retail. When
trading retail druggists and manufacturing
retail druggists are pitted against one an.
other in this way, Mr.. Attfeld thinks
that the mere distributor will 60 to the
wall. "Some day what remains of the
trading retail druggists trade will flow
away from him to the counter Of the man
ufacturing retail druggist, even though the
latter may charge higher prices for in pro-
portion as purchasers find they cannot
Judge for themselves they will go to those
who can judge for them" At all events
Mr.. Attfield would have every distributing
druggist learn how to test the quality of
most of the goods ne sells, and how to make
those which do not admit of being tested.
Thecredulous public probably believe tina.
every young man who stands behind a
druggists counter possesses, at all events,
the first of these qualifications and it may
be OF some use to them to be informed that
large number of distributing druggists
have to depend entirely upon the skill and
| integrity of the wholesale manufacturers
with whom they deal. It would be some
improvement on the present system if
| every druggist were compelled either to
take the responsibility of the drugs sold by
him or to name on the wrapper the manu-
facturer from whom they had been bought.
Ii manufacturers knew that wherever their
drugs went they carried with them the
name of their makers, they would have
much more reason than at present to dread
detection, supposing them to be guilty of
adulteration. Nor is it adulteration only
that the public have to fear. The integrity
of retail druggist is exposed to severer,
because a more subtle, temptation than
this. There are drugs which may
have been perfectly genuine when
they came into the druggists possession,
and may not have been In his possession
for any very long time, and yet may be
! quite worthless. The process of deteriors-
stantly renewed they lose all medicinal eff
cscy. If the druggist is to do his duty,
he must throw away his stock Of these
drugs certain number of days or weeks
after he has laid it in, though none of it.
may have been sold in the interval. 1t is
easy to understand how a man may shut
his eyes to this necessity who would never
think of buying inferior drugs. The latter
ofense is committed by men who wish to
make unlawful gains the former by men
who want the courage to face losses. 1t
might be made incumbent on druggists, in
the case of medicines of this particular
character, to state on the wrapper the date
at which they had come into their pos.
session. precaution of this kind might
not deter man who meant to cheat his
| customers, but it would bring home to
many men who are not prepared to cheat
their customers that this and nothing else
is what they are thinking of doing.-[Sat-
urday Review, August 26th.
SKINNY MEN," Wells Health Remover
restores health and vioor oDr.s