Norwich bulletin., 1919-05-08
Quacks, Ancient and Modern.

Do you regard cold cream as an ul- tra-modern palliative?
 Or pure food and drug laws as comparatively recent type of legisla- tion?
 Or the familiar "cure all" as an up- todate quack device for the twentieth century credulous? You are wrong. acording to the statements contained in a bulletin is sued by the National Geographic So- ciety, based upon a communication to the Society from Dr. John A. Foote. 4 part of the communica ton states: Most people at some time CT an ; other use cold cream. It seems quite d modern luxury. indispensable alike to peer and peri, and adapted to many and varied uses. In fact, one traveller tells recently of having some of his cold cream eaten by fat hungry va let in Germany. So we are inclined to ] regard it as a fairly modern product. And yet Jnguentum Refrigerans, cold cream, has come down to us from Roman days. The first formula is at 1 tributed to Galen, who lived and wrote i in the second century What we use i today is practically the same. though 1 Doctor Galen's original formula was 1 initiated and improved hundreds of ! times.
 Emperor Frederick IT. Of Sicily. in 1 1240 or 1241, published the first pure T food and drugs act. He was about roo i years ahead of Doctor Wiley, for he specified strict regulations of the
 standard of drug purity. and provided
 for drug inspectors. and fined all of i lenders:
 "The practice of medicine was also
 regulated. A physician was required
 to have diploma from a university
 before he could study medicine; then l he took a three-year course in the l school. of medicine and one year prac- /, tice under a practicing physician l Special post graduate work in anat- i omy was required if he was to dc :, surgery.
 "All this was in the so-called dark < ages Even the fees of physicians anC pharmacists were strictly regulated by law and were in purchasing value I about the same as the charges of tht present day. Physicians were. not al lowed to own drug stores and drus l adulterators were severely dealt with 1 "Mithradatium was the name of the great antidote' of Roman pharmacy. l had from 40 to 50 vegetable ingre
 dients, few of which had any req
 medicinal value except opium, ant ,. these drugs were blended with honey
 Tt remained for Nero's physician , AndromachuS, to put the hnlShln:
 touches to this wonderful compound
 Andromachu added yiper's flesh t
 the formula and called his new com pound Theriaca. He wrote som verses dedicated to Nero. describing ) this medicine and claiming virtues fo it which in our day would subject hir ::i to prosecution under the anti trus act. Evidently he believed he had ere 2 ated in this one compound a veritabl
 pharmaceutical monopoly.
 ''Galen. one of the fathers of medi , cine, went even further. He recon F nended it as a cure for all poison! i, bites. headaches, vertigo. deafness :. epilepsy, apoplexy, dimness of sigh ': loss of voice. asthma. coughs. spittin .. of blood tightness of breath, collie. tn lilac passion (appendicitis), jaundic q hardening of the spleen. stone. fever = !, dropsy, leprosy. melancholy, all pest -r fences, etc. Nowadays he woul !. probably have included coupe 2 thumb, golf shoulder, and movie ey . "As Galens writings dominate medical thought for over 1,500 year II it is not surprising that this advel tisement made Mithradatium. or The Il riaca, valued remedy. Every phys
 clan of note for centuries afterwa1
 claimed some improvement on the or
 ginal formula"