The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-26
Patent and Proprietary Medicines.
A Reply to Mir. Box.

einai or culinary, cannot be made ol preserved without alcohol.
 The use of alcohol in medicine fl approved by the pharmacopoeias of al | nations. 1t is in accord with the prac.
 tice of all medical authorities in the i. world
 The abuse of alcohol is another mat. ter. but the cost alone is enough tt prevent abuse. Alcohol costs abou
 $2,eo per gallon. It Is too expensiv'
 for any medicine maker to use nor,
 than he needs of it. And he canno
 hope that people are going to take tn medicine because of the alcohol, whei good whisky can be purchased for one l fifth as much.
 | A dose of medicine which contain even 20 per cent of alcohol does nc
 seem to me very dangerous matter
 That means one-fifth of a teaspoonfu
 of alcohol at time. Physicians d.
 not hesitate to give brandy 70 a chi,,
 in teaspoonful doses. and brandy f half \ alcohol. When one compare. I medicine with wine or beer, he should
 also compare the dosage. One take,
 more alcohol in q glass of wine thar
 he takes in great many doses O medicine. t. 5 l Mir. Box is also most unfair in hi,
 reference to, poisons used in proprfe tary medicines It is true that som, medicines contain poisons in smaI
 percentages. but the use Is not nearl,
 as general as in physicians prescrlp
 tfons- A great many drugs which arc
 recognized by every physician as help
 u ,a. in ST small .Ss doses are poisonous wher
 An elderly druggist told me a fev
 days ago that he had personally exam. ined more than 100000 physicians' pre-. | scriptions, and. by actual count, 70 pc, | cent of them contained an opiate. Yet
 analysis shows not a trace of opiatt
 in the largest sellers among the pro. | prietary remedies.
 Strychnine is another dangerou. ! drug largely prescribed by physicians
 1t is used as a tonic and stimulant
 Yet this is drug rarely found in pro- prietaries.
 cine must be more careful about tho l use of any poison than the physician | The physician is in a position to direc his doses and to watch the results. H. l is> able to take chances which no mak. l CT of general remedy will take, for | fear that the directions on the bottle
 will not be adhered to.
 There are thousands of physicians I,whose interests are opposed % proprle- tary remedies. They are ready to de- notince a reAdy made remedy at th- l slightest evidence of harm from 1t | Yet how seldom we Near Of any harm from proprietarles. have myself nev-
 CT heard of a single authenticated case It is the lack of poison, rather thar | it's presence, which forms the real ob- ! jection to proprietaries. It Is by usinV 2 | poison which the medicine maker
 avoids that the physician often secures | greater effect. The maker of a rem | edy has too much at stake to use any thing which will result in occasional ten to omit ingredients which ho 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 im- portance. And in ordinary ailments.
 when a physician is called, he pre< scribes a ready made remedy. Propri- etary remedies are at sofne time taken by all Of us. They are found Tn near lU every home.
 And I know Of no business where fraud has less chance of success than in medicine. A worthless remedy is very quickly found out. A sick person will not long continue remedy which 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 I need a remedy for any ordi-
 nary ailment. my choice goes to a rem |edy so good that it made its maker
 rich. A DEFENDER gat-yu