The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-03
Patent and Proprietary Medicines.
y Reply to MIR. Box.

cinal or culinary, cannot be made or
preserved without alcohol.
The use of alcohol in medicine is
approved by the pharmacopoenias of
all nations. 1t is in accord with the
practice of all medical authorities in
the world.
The abuse of alcohol is another mat
ter, but the cost alone is enough to
prevent abuse. Alcohol costs about
$3.50 per gallon. 1t is too expensive
for any medicine maker to use more
than he needs of it. And he cannot
hope that people are going to take
the medicine because of the alcohol,
when good whisky can be purchased
for one-fifth as much.
A dose of medicine which contains
even 20 per cent Of alcohol does not
seem to me. very dangerous mat
ter. That means one-ffth of a tea
spoonful of alcohol at a time. Physi-
clans do not hesitate to give brandy
to a child in teaSpoonful doses, and
brandy is half alcohol. When one
compares medicine with wine or beer
he should also compare the dosage.
One takes more alcohol in glass Of
wine than he takes in a great many
doses of medicine
Mr.. BOX is also most unfair in his
reference to poisons used in proprie-
tary medicines 1t is true that some
medicines contain poisons in small
percentages, but the use is not nearly
as general as in physicians prescrip-
tons. A great many drugs which are
recognized by every physician as help
full in small doses are poisonous when
taken in excess
An elderly druggist told me a few
days ago that he had personally exam
ined more than 100000 physicians
prescriptions, and, by actual count. 20
80. -s..4-
ct analysis shows not trace of
opiate in the largest sellers among the
proprietary remedies.
Strychnine is another dangerous
drug largely prescribed by physicians.
II is used as a tonic and stimulant.
Yet this is a drug rarely found i'm
proprietaTieS.
The maker of a proprietary medi-
cine must be more careful about the
use of any poison than the physician.
The physician is in a position to direct
his doses and to watch the results.
He is able to take chances which no
maker of general remedy will take,
for fear that the directions on the
bottle will not be adhered to.
There are thousands of physicians
whose interests are opposed to pro-
prietary remedies. They are ready to
denounce a ready made remedy at the
slightest evidence of harm from it.
Yet how seldom we hear of any harm
from proprietaries | have myself
never heard of a single authenticated
case.
1t is the lack of poison, rather than
its presence, which forms the real OBJ
lection to proprietaries. 1t is by using
poison which the medicine maker
avoids that the physician often Sc
cures q greater effect The maker of
remedy has too much at stake to
use anything which will result in oc-
casional harm. And this caution
leads him often to omit ingredients
which he knows to be valuable.
Proprietary remedies are used not
alone by the poor who cannot afford
to call a physician. They are employed
by those to whom expense is of no i'm
portance. And in ordinary ailments
when q physician is called he pre-
scrbes a ready made remedy. Proprie-
tary remedies are at some time taken
by all of us. They are found in nearly
every home.
fraud has less chance of success than
in medicine. A worthless remedy is
very quickly found out A sick person
will not long continue a remedy v-Sich
does not help. The lack of merit in a
food may remain long undiscovered,
but If a medicine lacks virtue the fact
is at once apparent.
When | need a remedy for any or
binary ailment, my choice goes to
remedy SO good that it made its
maker rich
X. BUTLER.