The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-02-09
THE MEDICINE BILLS.
Measures to Keep Proprietary
Articles Out of State.

The location of the bill to restrict the
sale of patent medicines and incidental
" to form a doctors trust has been dis
covered. It is reposing peacefully in the
senate committee on public health. to
which it was referred two or three
weeks ago.
This bill is calling forth a vigorous
protest from the newspapers Of the
state While a few doctors who are IN
able to charge what they would like TO
for their services because the sale of
certain standard proprietary medicines
keeps them from it, they are striking a
harder blow at the newspapers of the
state than they are al the proprietary
articles. The doctors realize that the
foundation of the success of these ar
ticles is advertising and they are there
fore striking blow at the advertising
of these things. Almost every paying
newspaper in the state derives con-
siderable portion Of its income from the
advertising of proprietary articles and
it would be severe on them to have TINS
income cut off.
This bill was introduced in the senate
BY. Senator Gabriel by request of those
who are back of it. The bill was re-
ferred to the committee on pubic
health, and It is reported that the COM
mittee may perhaps report the bill IA
vorably to the senate One Of the mem
bers of the committee said today that
while he is opposed to the bill, ne pre-
fers that it be killed on the floor of the
senate because it looks to him good
deal like a hoId-up.
The doctors who are urging the pass
age of the bill are making the claim
that it is "in the interest of public
health" Yet there are probably more
people positively injured every year by
incompetent physicians than by taking
proprietary medicines Some Of the
remedies which these doctors wish to
shut out of the state were standard
remedies before the opponents of the
remedies were born, and they are pre-
seribed by many of the best physicians.
Good doctors do not need to resort to a
fight on proprietary medicines in order
to bolster up their practice. If they are
competent and skillful there is generally
a sufficient demand for their services to
/ keep them busy
The manner in which the opponents
of proprietary medicines hope to shut
off their sale is by making it unlawful
for them to advertise them within the
state until they file with the state board
of health the formula of the medicines.
/ AS some Of them were compounded
only after years of study, and as this
/ procedure would make it possible for
any one to find out the secret of their
manufacture and start up competition
! of course no manufac turer of prOpr1e-
( tary medicine who has spent years in
building up valuable business is going
to throw it away by making his for
mula public Instead he would with
draw from Kansas and sell his medi-
cines in other states.
This would Immediately shut off the
advertising and sale of all such articles.
4 Then when a person had a severe cough
which he knew could be cured by a GER
tain proprietary remedy which he might
/ have been using for ten or twenty years,
he would find himself unable to buy 1t
at any drug store, but would have to go
to some doctor and pay for a prescrip-
ton, and then take the prescription to a
drug store to be filed. The prescription
would be written in characters which
he could not understand and would not
even state what the remedy was for.
and the chances are that it would not
do it's work as thoroughly as the pro-
prietary remedy which he had been US
ing for years. This is the end which the
doctors who are pushing the bill
hope to attain. They wish to form what
would practically be a doctors trust.
The bill imposes a severe penalty upon
any druggist who sells or advertises any
medicine not admitted for sale under
the act