The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1907-08-23
A PECULIAR ALLIANCE.
That Made by the Doctors and the
W. c. r. U.

For the purpose of fighting patent"
medicines the doctors, as represent.
ed by the American Medical Associa-
ton, have made an alliance with the
w. G. T. U. who have been deceived
into believing that the alcohol in pat
ent' medicines is a menace. In this
alliance the good ladies of the w. G.
T. U. are apparently put in the posi-
ton of dragging chestnuts out of the
fire for their allies. There Is no class
so firmly convinced of the necessity
for alcohol in medication as the doc
tors who, with a few exceptions, not
only prescribe it freely but use it, as
indeed they must whether they would
prefer to or not, as solvent and pre-
servative. On the other hand the
w. G. T. U. contends that the whole
medical and pharmaceutical world is
in error; that alcohol Is not only USE
less but that it is dangerous and
harmful in any quantity in any medi-
cinal preparation. While their princi-
pies are so wholly at variance the
doctors Ind the w. c. T. y. ladies'
have cheerfully allied themselves in a
war on patent medicines, and the
w. G. T. U. is placed in an even more
ridiculous position by reason of the
fact that the doctors do not confine
their fight to those medicines which
contain alcohol, but lump all patent"
medicines in one class. And this, too,
despite the fact that, according to fig
ures printed in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, about
70 per cent Of physicians prescrip-
tons are for patent" or proprietary"
medicines. 50.
The inability of many physicians
to prescribe any but ready-to-use rem
edies is frequently commented upon
by the medical press, and by physi-
clans of the better class when assem-
bled in conventions. That three
fourths of the physicians graduated
each year in the United States are in
competent and peril to the COM
munities in which they practice was
charged openly at the annual meeting
of the Committee on Medical Educa-
ton of the American Medical Asso-
citation, held tn Chicago in April of
this year. The total number of grad
yates annually was placed at 1000
which means that at least 5000 in
competents are turned loose annually.
It was stated at this meeting that an
average of So per cent of the gradu-
ates from medical colleges failed to
pass state examinations. These fail
ures either 60 back to school, or go
to some state where the requirements
are not SO high.
That many doctors are so ignorant
in matters pertaining to pharmacy
that they know nothing about the
properties Of the drugs they prescribe,
was stated by DR.. M. Clayton Thrush,
a professor in the Medico- Chirurgical
College at Philadelphia in an address
before the Annual Convention of the
American Medical Association at At
laotic City in June of this year.
DR.. Henry Beats, Jr., President of
the Board of Medical Examination
for the State of Pennsylvania, in an
interview in the daily papers said:
about one quarter Of the papers
show a degree of illiteracy that rend-
ers the candidates for licensure in
capable Of understanding medicine"
He criticizes the colleges for award
ing degrees in these cases.