Another immediate result of the law is the exclusion of damaged drugs. Heretofore no state of damage or decay, whether little or much, prevented an article, either manufactured or crude, being thrown into market and sold for whatever it purported to be, whether calomel half oxydyzed, iodide of potassium one-third deliquesced, rhubarb one-half rotten, senna in a similar or worse condition from being soaked with salt water—they each sold under their original names, and found their way into the bands of the buyers of _cheap goods_, either in that state or powdered or re-bottled, re-labelled, and done up good as new. The importer got his drawback of twenty-five, fifty, and seventy per cent. of duty. The insurance company sold the goods and paid the difference; bargain getters purchased; the physician prescribed; the apothecary dealt out, and the patient, suffering under the pains and ills of lingering disease, swallowed; all but the last got their pay, while the poor man who bore the unrighteous accumulation of the whole, cursed his physician for not understanding his complaint, and perchance turned his face to the wall and died. This is no fancy sketch, but true, every word of it, and more than once acted out in the dream of every-day life. { 269}
Under the proper construction and administration of the law, all this will and is now mostly prevented. It must be evident that any article of medicine essentially damaged, is not fit to be given to the sick as a remedy. This is a very important point, and all examiners should be careful to enforce it strictly, regardless of the specious plea of interested insurance companies or individuals, for any other construction for their general or especial benefit or relief.
In few words then, may be summed up the immediate effects of this law: A purer and better class of chemicals and compound preparations, a material improvement in the quality of crude drugs imported, such as gums, barks, roots, leaves, and an almost entire exclusion of damaged and decayed drugs from our markets.
These results are, in themselves, sufficient to mark the law as one of great value, and to entitle it to a sure claim for perpetuity, and its provisions to a steady enforcement. But they are by no means all that it has accomplished. Its remote or secondary effects, which I propose to point out, are equally important, and they are found in the influence upon our home manufactures and trade.