It has often been claimed that the law was a tariff for protection to home adulteration, and while we shut out the evil in one way, we were equally exposed to it in the shape of home preparations; were this even true, it is no argument against the law for keeping out foreign adulteration, as it is very evident that if both are equally bad, no pure medicine can be had by those who require them, while if we are certain the foreign are pure, we have a choice between the pure and the sophisticated. But I am satisfied that the amount of home adulterations have been over estimated, and that under the effect of this law they are decreasing daily, and perhaps mainly because the demand is decreasing.
I have never believed, though it has been again and again asserted, that our medical gentleman to any great extent, who buy and use most largely of this class of goods, have desired { 270} to buy and use inferior medicines, because they were cheap, and my own direct intercourse and observation, as a druggist for five years, aside from a six years’ experience in the profession, has satisfied me of the correctness of my views. I speak of the country at large. Wherever it has been the case, it has been the result of ignorance, as to the appearance and physical properties of drugs that has led them into this error, an error in which, from a like ignorance, they have been kept by their druggist, who has been imposed upon by the bland assurance of the importer or jobber, which led him to take all things of a like name as of the same quality. There are those who buy because cheap, and prescribe, and perchance hope for success in the use of such remedies, but they are not found among our medical gentlemen of education and character and entitled to the respect and confidence of the community at large. The flood of light thrown upon this subject of adulterations of medicines by the reports to Congress; by the report of Dr. Bailey, special examiner for the port of New York; reports to the American Medical Association, and by various other writers in our pharmaceutical and medical journals, through the newspapers of the day, and various other means to the people, has worked, and is working a revolution in the drug trade at large. By a desire and growing necessity for a proper education of pharmaceutists and druggists, a man is no longer considered competent to sell, dispose and deal out medicinal articles affecting the health, life and happiness of his fellow-beings, simply because he can calculate a per centage, or make a profit.