New-York tribune., 1921-05-22
Volstead Ideas
Held First Aid
To Undertaken
Pharmaceutical Experts De-
clare Curb ON Alcohol in
Drugs Would Give Quick
Impetus to Death List
No Other Solvent Works
DistiIlers Lack Skill to Pro-
duce Finely Graded Tine
tures Physicians Insist On
From The Trtbane's Washington Bureau

From The Trtbune's Wdshtndtcr Bureau
WASHINGTON, May elf Repre-
sentative Volstead's latest amendments
to the prohibition act are passed in
their present form consumers Of "tinc-
tures," fluid extracts" and other con-
coctions that may be authorized win
keep the undertakers of the nation
busy, according to the view expressed
by the American Drug Manufacturers
Association here to-day in vigorous
statement in criticism of Volstead and
Wayne B. Wheeler, counsel for the
Anti-Saloon League, who suggested the
amendments.
"A year hence" the drug associa-
tion's statement said, "if the family
doctor prescribes a teaspoonfui of tine
ture of this or that for that cold in,
your head and two days later the fam
lily requests your friends to omit few
ers,' don't haunt the doctor in VEN
geance. If Mr.. Volstead's latest bill to
sew up the holes in the prohibition law
passes in its present form the proper
subjects for your wrath will be Mr..
Volstead and Wayne B. Wheeler, coun-
sci for the Anti-Saloon League, by
The bill which is popularity sup
posed to put the amber fluid beyond
the reach of those thirsty enough to
pay prescription fee, does 1auch more
than this, according to the claims of
the pharmaceutical manufacturers who
make the tinctures. fluid extracts and
other hard names with which the drug
gist compounds the physicians pre-
scriptions.
Alcohol an Essential Ingredient
Amidst a bombardment of polysyl-
lablcs that inspired one Of the commit
tee to suggest the suspension of the
Eighteenth Amendment for the benefit
OF the stenographer, who he was sure
needed stimulant, the fact was brought
out that the medicinal property the
doctor wants can only be dissolved out
OF the medicinal herb or other crude
drug by alcohol.
The pharmaceutical manufacturers
OF the country have no quarrel with
the provision of the bill that would
ban beer as medicine, but they are
greatly aroused over a provision which
would require the alcohol they use as
a solvent to be medicated at the dis
tlllery with some ingredient of the
finished preparation. Making ethical
medicines, they contend, requires the
most eXactlng and scientific checking
at every step in order to make sure
that the finished preparation will be of
the exact strength that the doctor de-
slres, so that when he prescribes a
teaspoonful the patient won't be get
ting only half of the required strength
and complaining he doesn't get we'll, or
twice the required strength and COM
planning that his wife had been made q
widow too early.
If the distillers are required to
medlcate the alcohol the pharmaceuti.
cal manufacturers point out that they
will be robbed of this exactinei contro'
of their product and as result they
will not be able to answer to the ply,
siclan for the fine precision of their
pharmaceuticals, as they do now. The
dlstillers themselves, who don't thank
Mr.. Volstead or Mr. Wheeler for wish
ing this responsibility on them, back
up the claim of the pharmaceutical
manufacturers that the distilling in
dustry, does not employ the type of ex-
pert pharmaceutical chemists that the
drug industry employs and that the
standards of the therapeutic agents of
the country would be lowered to a
point dangerous to public health if
they were required to take this part
in the work of the pharmaceutical
manufacturers.
Mr.. Volstead's bill also would forbid