Radley Balko on CATO & REASON

Via Facebook:

Radley Balko You're onto them, Douglas. Obviously, the most pressing issue with current drug war is who is responsible for for its inception at the beginning of the 20th century. And Reason and Cato have ignored this because are firmly ensconced in the pockets of the 1906 tobacco companies. And they would've gotten away with it if it weren't for your detective skills!

Thursday at 8:15pm · · 14

Alas they are STILL getting away with it- at least as I am the ONLY person writing about it...

Read more ►

Harvey Wiley's AMA/APA Condemnation of Coca

1905 was the year of Tobacco’s deletion from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia, and hence its shielding by the impending 1906 US Food & Drug Act, from its definitions of regulatable substances, and of the A.M.A. founding its "Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry" consisting of 15 men. (in 1906-07). These included U.S.D.A. Bureau of Chemistry Chief, Harvey Washington Wiley; U.S.D.A. Drug Division Lyman.F. Kleber, A.M.A. General Secretary; and Journal of the American Medical Asosciation J.A.M.A. editor Gene Simmons.

It wasted little time in setting out to condemn the best known Coca product, Vin Mariani, with a report on a Vin Mariani dated March 10, 1905, and published in J.A.M.A. on November 24, 1906, at pages 1751-1753 Vin Mariani Official Report by Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry- With Comments...

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-dark-ages-ama-apha-crusade-against.html

This 1905 AMA-APhA report on Vin Marinai saying nothing about health matters, instead condemning Vin Mariani sold in North America as a fraudulant foreign product when such was in fact blended in Mariani's New York (W 15th Street, Manhattan) factory from the identical ingrediants used in France where it was initially formulated.

The following 1909 Journal of the American Medical Association article disregards public health issues, juxtapositioning its hypocritical stance against "cocaine" perfectly with its double standards regarding the very substance that the AMA was here placing its highest level of concern regarding "habit-forming agents" by condemning "cocaine" with zero regard to matters of concentration-potency-dose (a coca chewing gum would replicate coca chewing due to the requirment to chew- aka work for that dose), all for the sake of opposing its use in particular as a "Tobacco Habit Cure"; From The Journal of the American Medical Association, May 29,1909:

COCA-BOLA

[The following article by Mr. E.F. Ladd, Food Commissioner of North Dakota, appeared in the October. 11)00, bulletin of the North Dakota Experiment Station.]

We have recently had - occasion to examine a sample of Coca-Bola, a product labeled as having been produced by Charles L. Mitchell, M.D.. Philadelphia, and the face label bears the following statement:

Each ounce contains 0.71 grains 0f cocaln. A chewing paste of leaves of the coca plant, combined with other valuable tonics.

The directions for use say eoca-bola is made in the form of flat cakes or plugs divided into squares and should be used by chewing one of the small squares marked on the plug and swallowing the saliva. They further say it should be used at occasional intervals as needed throughout the day. To get its full effect it will be necessary to use several squares. They further say:

Although a powerful muscular or nervous tonic, coca-bola has no evil after-effects, and hence is far superior tu any other stimulant in the materia medica.

Now this information given out in tlie advertising which accompanies each package is. it would seem, intended to give the impression that this product is an entirely harmless one; in other words, that a preparation containing cocain as an active constituent, is to he generally recommended for use without any caution as to the harm that may come from forming a habit for cocain. They further say:

A small portion chewed occasionally acts as a powerful Ionic to the muscular and nervous system, enabling the chewer to perform additional labor, and also relieves fatigue and exhaustion without evil after-effects. It contains no injurious Ingredients and is perfectly harmless.

So we might quote fr.om the circular which is sent out by a man who claims to be a physician, urging, as it were, on the people the use of a product of this kind, which, as has clearly been shown, must in the end result in the formation of the cocain habit, if not in the complete demoralization and degradation of the individual himself.

The laws of North Dakota prohibit the sale of any compound or product in the state which contains cocain in any form. It further prohibits the refilling of a physician's prescription that contains cocain, and yet a product of this kind, it would seem from information that has been gathered, is sold directly to the consumer, although it is true the proprietor of the product maintains that it is now sold only to physicians. In a letter under date of Aug. 19, 1909, signed by Charles L. Mitchell, M.D., he says:

What little we sell now conforms strictly with the requirements of the United States Pure Food and Drug Law, and is sold only on special order of physicians and their prescriptions.

Under date of September 7. I called the attention of the proprietor to the fact that the laws of this state would not permit of the sale of such a preparation in North Dakota. In reply, I received a letter which is self explanatory, as follows:

September 13, 1909. E. F. Ladd, South Dakota Agricultural College, Agricultural College, S.D.

Dear Sir:

Your favor of September 7th duly received for which please accept my thanks.

Owing to the "crank" legislation of many states we have discontinued the manufacture of all coca and cocain preparations.

Any "fool" druggist of your state who gets or fells an old package of our coca-bola does it at his own risk, as necessarily, having been put out some time ago, there is no guarantee, and we will not protect him.

The people are getting a little sense into their beads, however, gradually, and they will sometime realize that preparations of both coca and cocain have an honest and legitimate use by the medical profession.

Your state law is silly, and on a par with the 9-foot bed sheet laws of Texas and Oklahoma Of course, your duty is to enforce the law, not to criticise it. I can do that. I am.

Yours very truly. Diet, by C. L. M. Charles L. Mitchell, M.D.

A letter of this kind needs no comment, and a product of this kind, in the judgment of the writer, can only be sent out for malicious purposes and its sale is illegal in North Dakota. We warn the public against* either handling the same or using the same, if they would avoid the formation of a serious drug habit and one that must result in positive injury to our people.

This product, put up in the form of a gum, would easily take the place—for one who had formed the habit for cocain— of tobacco; and it might be made to take the place of chewing gum with young people who would be entirely innocent of the intentional use of any such preparation, not knowing the evil effects that would come from its continued use.

In the judgment of the writer, no man who will allow his name to be connected with a scheme of this kind should bo permitted to digrace the profession of medicine by using the title M.D. (from The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) January 9, 1910.

That's a most ironic statement, given that Coca or even isolated cocaine (in properly buffered dilute form) would be an infinitely safer healthier substitute for Tobacco consumption.

Read more ►

Harvey Wiley- Resume 1915

http://books.google.com/books?id=9aU0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&ots=QdfQKGVcTg&dq=Wiley+Cosmos+Club&output=text#c_top

May 23, 1915.

DR. HARVEY W. WILEY.

Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, known nationally as "the pure food man," was born in Kent, Indiana, October 18, 1844. His mother, Lucinda Weir Maxwell, was a granddaughter of Bezaleel Maxwell. She married Preston P. Wiley on March 1, 1832. Of this union seven children were born, of which one, Samuel Maxwell, died in infancy.

The subject of our sketch received his early collegiate training at Hanover College, from which institution he graduated with the A. B. degree in 1867, receiving the degree of A. M. there in 1870. He studied medicine with Dr. S. E. Hampton, of Milton, Kentucky, and entered the Medical College of Indiana at the beginning of the term, 1869, graduating there in 1872. In 1873 he graduated from Harvard and was appointed professor of Medical Chemistry in the college. He discharged the duties of this office until the fall of 1878. From the time of organization until February, 1915, a period of nine years, he served on the Council of Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association. Doctor Wiley is a member of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, of the American Medical Association, of the American Public Health Association, of the American Pharmaceutical Association, and of the American Therapeutic Society, of which he was president in 1910-11. He says his services to medicine have been honored more in the breach than in the observance, as he has never practiced.

Besides the collegiate degrees already mentioned, he received the B. S. degree from Harvard in 1873. The following honorary degrees have been conferred upon him: Ph. D., Hanover, 1876; LL. D., Hanover, 1898; LL. D., University of Vermont, October 12, 1911; D. Sc., Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1912.

His activities as a medical scientist and chemist have been based upon a long experience as a teacher. From 1867-1870 he was professor of Latin and Greek at Butler College. In 1871 he taught science in the Indianapolis High School. In 1874 he was professor of Chemistry at Butler. And from 1874-1882 he was professor of Chemistry at Purdue and State Chemist of Indiana. He taught in George Washington University, 1899-1914, as Professor of Agricultural Chemistry, and held the position of Consulting Professor of Food Chemistry in the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1905. From 1884 to 1912 Doctor Wiley was secretary of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists.

It was as Chief Chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture (1883-1912), and while Chairman of the Board of Food and Drug Inspection (1907-1912), that he gained a name and national prominence in his relentless stand against food adulteration. Through experimentation and other methods he convinced the public mind that many foods were being treated with drugs, such as sodium benzoate, that were harmful as preservatives. The manufacturing interests financially involved went after Doctor Wiley, and a fight, very interesting to the general newspaper reading public, resulted. But right is right if might is might, and right and Doctor Wiley won, because the contest was to uphold a principle that was for the public weal—pure food. He was heartily supported by the women's clubs, the medical profession and the public at large.

Doctor Wiley has thrice been a member of Juries of Awards at the world's expositions—in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair; at the Paris Exposition in 1900; and at the Jamestown Exposition in 1907. He has served as United States delegate to the Third International Congress of Applied Chemistry at Vienna, in 1898; to the Fourth Congress in Paris, 1900; to the Fifth Congress in Berlin, 1903; to the Sixth Congress in Rome, 1906; and to the Seventh Congress in London, 1909, when he acted as Chairman of the American Committee.

In 1908 he was Honorary President, Premier Congres International pour la Repression des Fraudes Alimentaries et Pharmaceutiques, Geneva; and in 1909, Corresponding Member for the United States, Societe Universelle de la Crois-Blanche de Geneva. He has three times received decorations: Chevalier Merit Agricole, 1900; Chevalier, Legion d'Honneur, 1909; Elliott Cresson Medal of Franklin Institute, 1910.

A member of twenty-two scientific societies and an honorary member of fourteen institutes and societies, one would hardly expect Doctor Wiley to be much of a club man. Yet he belongs to no less than six: The Chemists' Club of New York, the Chevy Chase Club of Washington, D. C, the Franklin Inn Club of Philadelphia, the Harvard Union of Cambridge, the National Press Club of Washington, D. C, and the Cosmos Club of Washington, of which latter he was president in 1910-12.

Along with many other activities, Doctor Wiley has found time to write books and articles for the magazines. He is contributing editor to Good Housekeeping Magazine. A book on Foods and'Their Adulteration, published by P. Blakiston's Son and Company, Philadelphia, comes from his pen. He has also produced a standard work, in three volumes, on the Principles and Practice of Agricultural Analysis (The Chemical Publishing Company of Easton, Pennsylvania). The Lure of the Land is published by the Century Company of New York.

Though Doctor Wiley retired from public life in 1912, he has not lost interest in public affairs. He is now president of the United States Pharmacopoeial Convention, 1910-15, which is preparing the ninth decennial volume of the United States Pharmacopoeia. He is president of the Citizens' Committee of One Hundred, charged with the safeguarding of the interests of the citizens of Washington against unfair fiscal legislation. He is president of the Mouth Hygiene Association of the United States, looking after the care of the teeth of the nation. He is president of the Columbia Hospital for Women, which is a National Hospital created by the Congress and conducted by a board of trustees consisting of Senators, Representatives and citizens. For the past three years he has been connected with the Redpath Chautauqua and Lyceum Service and has given over three hundred lectures in all parts of the United States. He is a director of one of the largest banks in Washington and personally looks after extensive business interests. He is also a trustee of Hanover College, to which he has made large financial contributions.

On February 27, 1911, Doctor Wiley was united in marriage to Miss Anna C. Kelton, daughter of Major-General John C. Kelton, U. S. A., and Josephine Campbell Kelton. Two children have been born to them: Harvey W. Wiley, Jr., born May 16, 1912, and John Preston Wiley, born February 27, 1914.

Since 1912 Doctor Wiley has spent a large part of his time lecturing, writing, and enjoying himself as a farmer. He owns a plantation in Loudoun County, Virginia, not far from the site of the old home of his great grandfather, Bezaleel Maxwell.


http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA1099&lpg=PA1099&dq=Cosmos%20Club%20Knights%20Harvey%20Wiley&sig=0PSObeUidSUEm9CvW8gkz7AkjxY&ei=3fGcTZOfEcP00gHThq2oDA&ct=result&id=I-wRAAAAYAAJ&ots=_0cB8tJ09t&output=text

WILEY, Harvey Washingtoni

Agricultural and Food Chemist. Born In Kent County, Indiana, Oct. 18, 1844; son of Preston P. and Lueinda Weir (Maxwell) Wiley. Educ. Hanover Coll., 1863-67; Indiana Medical Coll., 1871; Lawrence School of Harvard Univ., 1872-73. 187879 studied in Germany. A.B., Hanover, 1867. A.'M.. 1870; M.D., Ind. Med. Coll., 1S71; B.S., Harvard. 1873; Ph.D., Hanover, 1S7G; LL.H., Hanover, 1898. State Chemist of Ind., 1881-83; Chief of the Division of Chemistry, 1901—date. Pres. Section C, Assoc, for Advancement of Science, 1886; General Secretary. 1891. Delegate from U S to second, third, fourth, and fifth meetings of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry Member of the Jury of Awards at the Universal Expos at Paris, 1900 Author of: Foods and Their Adulterations," etc. Decorations: Chevalier, Merlte Agrlcnle, 1900; Chevalier, Legion d'Honneur, 1909, etc. Member of: Chemist Club, N.Y.; Chevy Chase Club; Cosmos Club; Nat. Press Club, Wash., and a great many other clubs and societies. Married, Feb. 27, 1911, Anna Campbell Kelton. Home address: 1848 Biltmore St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Business: Bureau of Chemistry, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C, U.S.A. WILEY,

Read more ►

The Post 1906 Demise of U.S. Coca

The last bottle of Vin Mariani in the United States?

Yes, Coca was technically legal under the 1906 U.S. Pure Foods and Drugs Act.



That act did not even mention Coca, and only mentioned cocaine (but neither caffeine or nicotine)in its list of substances that had to be labeled.



Theoretically then, sale of products as Vin Mariani should have continued, whether as a food or drug, though with proportion of cocaine alkaloid clearly labeled.



But it gave the U.S.D.A. the power to ban the sale of what it termed dangerous to the public health substances in foods.



This power required NO justification upon scientific objectivity. The U.S.D.A. was free to simply declare a substance dangerous and or deleterious to human health, with the accompanying charge that a substance had to be restricted because it was 'habit-forming' - a set of concerns belying this Act's MERCANTILIST nature as an extension of the U.S.D.A.'s mission to promote U.S. domestic agriculture, along with the 1906 Act's cute exemption of such, namely Tobacco, from the jurisdiction of this new powers of the USDA- now banned from even regulating Tobacco, yet empowered to declare it potential competitors 'dangerous' and thereby illegal.



Harvey Wiley went after Coca products sold as foods -- primarily beverages -- with prosecutions of manufacturers for 'adulteration' for containing cocaine, under the 'reasoning' that the cocaine alkaloid was dangerous to human health- never mind the lack of any showing for the dilute amounts contained within Coca. This was whether or not the product was so labeled, even for things obviously containing it, as Coffee contains caffeine, clearly labeled as Coca products; because Wiley simply declared cocaine to be so dangerous as to automatically render the product "adulterated.".



Wiley's USDA-AMA-APhA clique went after the use of Coca products as OTC drugs by campaigning with 'model legislation' campaigns to the various State legislatures to get them to make products as Vin Mariani prescription only, that rested upon a negative spin upon bulky herbal based preparations as Vin Mariani as "nostrums" -- after all concentrated pharmaceuticals, pills where more profitable per truckload. And they bragged about it, even as cocaine use shifted towards more concentrated modes available on the black market..



The Coca manufacturers responded by retreating- betraying their righteous stance that Coca was not concentrated cocaine as any sort of substance of abuse, by acting as if they had something to be embarrassed about by cocaine's mere presence- creating a false look that they had something they had to hide.



Vin Mariani followed what Coca Cola did a few years earlier- removing the cocaine alkaloid. This would keep it legal, though neutered, provided it was not sold as a medicine- (Connecticut after 1907 charge of misbranding)



The prescription requirement -- non refillable -- was of course a suicide requirement, like insisting upon a doctor's visit for a cup of coffee.



Wiley would push for laws banning the other major Coca alkaloids, and write the term 'coca leaves' into the new legislation, pushed through 1912 and by 1914 becoming the Harrison Narcotics Act.

Read more ►

Wiley's Subversion of Our Freedom of Medicine & Diet- Key Points

place a negative spin upon bulkier dilute herbal preperations- pills are more profitable

get a law with an unequal protection under the law- some drugs bad others too entrenched to be restricted

get a law giving the power to unilaterally declare a substance bad to the USDA, while of course exempt the major agricultural commodity of Tobacco

declare cocaine bad without any science, confusing acute toxicity of concentrated forms of the drug with chronic use of dilute versions

get cocaine out of foods as adulteration- regardless of whether labled; Wiley also tried this unsubstantiated position against against caffein in coca cola.

get cocaine out of 'proprietary' medicines- badmouth it as bad, push non-refillable prescription requirments at the State legislatures and ultimately the U.S. Congress.

Read more ►

Wiley's Great American Fraud of Confusing the Public

between the concentrated dosing of the catarrh powders with the dilute of beverages such as Vin Mariani





Blur Concentrated Dosing of Catarrh Powders with 'Nostrums' as Vin Mariani



Published as "The 'Nostrum' Evil" in Collier's Weekly, October 7, 1905



There is but one safeguard in the use of these remedies; to regard them as one would regard opium, and to employ them only with the consent of a physician who understands their true nature. Acetanilid has its uses, but not as a generic painkiller. Pain is a symptom; you can drug it away temporarily, but it will return, clamoring for more payment, until the finnl price is hopeless enslavement. Were the skull and bones on every box of this class of poison the danger would be greatly minimized.



With opium and cocain the case is different. The very words are danger signals. Legal restrictions safeguard the public, to a greater or less degree, from their indiscriminate use. Normal people do not knowingly take opium or its derivatives except with the sanction of a physician, and there is even spreading abroad a belief (surely an expression of the primal law of selfpreservation) that the licensed practitioner leans too readily toward the convenient narcotics.



But this perilous stuff is the ideal basis for a patent medicine because its results are immediate (though never permanent), and it is its own best advertisement in that one dose imperatively calls for another. Therefore it behooves the manufacturer of opiates to disguise the use of the drug. This he does in varying forms, and he has found his greatest success in the "cough and consumption cures" and the soothing syrup class. The former of these will be considered in another article. As to the "soothing syrups," designed for the drugging of helpless infants, even the trade does not know how many have risen, made their base profit, and subsided. A few survive, probably less harmful than the abandoned ones, on the average, so that by taking the conspicuous survivors as a type I am at least doing no injustice to the class.



Some years ago I heard a prominent New York lawyer, asked by his office scrub woman to buy a ticket for some "association" ball, say to her: "How can you go to these affairs, Nora, when you have two young children at home?"



"Sure, they're all right," she returned blithely; "just wan teaspoonful of Winslow's an' they lay like the dead till mornin'."



What eventually became of the scrub woman's children I don't know. The typical result of this practice is described by a Detroit physician who has been making a special study of Michigan's high mortality rate:



"Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup is extensively used among the poorer classes as a means of pacifying their babies. These children eventually come into the hands of physicians with a greater or less addiction to the opium habit. The sight of a parent drugging a helpless infant into a semicomatose condition is not an elevating one for this civilized age, and it is a very common practice. I can give you one illustration from my own

[A DANGEROUS SAMPLE BOX WHiCH GOES THROUGH THE MAiLS. Enough tablets were contained in this package, marked "Xo Heart Effect," to stop the heart entirely if taken all at once. The' chief ingredient of antikamnia is acetanilid.]

hospital experience, which was told me by the father of the girl. A middleaged railroad man of Kansas City had a small daughter with summer diarrhea. For this she was given a patent diarrhea medicine. It controlled the trouble, but as soon as the remedy was withdrawn the diarrhea returned. At every withdrawal the trouble began anew, and the final result was that they never succeeded in curing the daughter of the opium habit which had taken its hold on her. It was some years afterward that the parents became aware that she had contracted the habit, when the physician took away the patent medicine and gave the girl morphin, with exactly the same result which she had experienced with the patent remedy. At the time the father told me this story his daughter was 19 years of age, an only child of wealthy parents, and one who could have had every advantage in life, but who was a complete wreck in every way as a result of the opium habit. The father told me, with tears in his eyes, that he would rather she had died with the original illness than to have lived to become the creature which she then was."



The proprietor of a drug store in San Jose, Cal., writes to Collier's as follows:



"I have a good customer, a married woman with five children, all under 10 years of age. When her last baby was born, about a year ago, the first thing she did was to order a bottle of Winslow's Soothing Syrup, and every

Were this drugstore display in illinois instead of New York City, the druggist would be arrested and his stock confiscated. This is one of the favorite cocain powders used by victims of the cocain habit. The law now requires that it be labeled "Poison."

week another hoitle was bought at first, until now a bottle is bought every third day. Why? Because the baby has become habituated to the drug. I am not well enough acquainted with the family to be able to say that the weaned children show any present abnormality of health due to the opium contained in the drug, but the after-effects of opium have been thus described. . . . Another instance, quite as startling, was that of a mother who gave large quantities of soothing syrup to two of her children in infancy; then, becoming convinced of its danger, abandoned its use. These children in middle life became neurotics, spirit and drug-takers. Three children born later and not given any drugs in early life grew up strong and healthy.

"I fear the children of the woman in question will all suffer for their mother's ignorance, or worse, in later life, and have tried to do my duty by sending word to the mother of the harmful nature of the stuff, but without effect.



"P. S.—How many neurotics, fiends and criminals may not 'Mrs Winslow' be sponsor for?"

This query is respectfully referred to the Anglo-American Drug Company, of New York, which makes its handsome profit from this slave trade.



Recent legislation on the part of the New York State Board of Pharmacy will tend to decrease the profit, as it requires that a poison label be put on each bottle of the product, as has long been the law in England.



An Omaha physician reports a case of poisoning from a compound bearing the touching name of "Kopp's Baby Friend," which has a considerable sale in the middle west and in central New York. It is made of sweetened water and morphin, about one-third grain of morphin to the ounce.

"The child (after taking four drops) went into a stupor at once, the pupils were pin-pointed, skin cool and clammy, heart and respiration slow. I treated the case as one of opium poisoning, but it took twelve hours before my little patient was out of danger."

As if to put a point cf satirical grimncss on the matter, the responsible proprietor of this particular business of drugging helpless babies is a woman, Mrs. J. A. Kopp, of York, Pa.



Making cocain fiends is another profitable enterprise. Catarrh, powders are the medium. A decent druggist will not sell cocain as such, steadily, to any customer, except on prescription, but most druggists find salve for their consciences in the fact that the subtle and terrible drug is in the form of somebody's sure cure. There is need to say nothing of the effects of cocain other than that it is destructive to mind and body alike, and appalling in its breaking down of all moral restraint. Yet in New York City it is distributed in "samples" at ferries and railway stations. You may see the empty boxes and the instructive labels littering the gutters of Broadway any Saturday night, when the drug trade is briskest.



Birney's Catarrhal Powder, Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, Dr. Gray's Catarrh Powder, and Crown Catarrh Powder are the ones most in demand. All of them are cocain; the other ingredients are unimportant—perhaps even superfluous.



Whether or not the bottles are labeled with the amount of cocain makes little difference. The habitues know. In one resp?ot, however, the labels help them by giving information as to which nostrum is the most heavily drugged.



"People come in here," a New York City druggist tells me, "ask what catarrh powders we've got, read the labe'.s, and pick out the one that's got the most cocain. When I see a customer comparing labels I know she's a fiend."



Naturally these owners and exploiters of these mixtures claim that the small amount of coeain contained is harmless. For instance, the "Crown Cure," admitting 2% per cent., says:

"Of course, this is a very small and harmless amount. Coeain is now considered to be the most valuable addition to modern medicine ... it is the most perfect relief known."

Birney's Catarrh Cure runs as high as 4 per cent, and can produce testimonials vouching for its harmlessneas. Here is a Birney "testimonial" to the opposite effect, obtained "without solicitation or payment" (I have ventured to put it in the approved form), which no sufferer from catarrh can afford to miss:



READ WHAT



William Thompson, Of Chicago,



says of



BIRNEY'S CATARRH CURE.

"Three years ago Thompson was a strong man. Now he is without money, health, home, or friends." (Chicago Tribune.) "I began taking Birney's Catarrh Cure (says Thompson) three years ago. and the longing for the drug has grown so potent that I suffer without it. "I followed the directions at first, then I increased the quantity until I bought the stuff hy the dozen bottles."

A famous drink and drug cure in Illinois had, as a patient, not long ago, a 14-year-old boy. who was a slave to the Birney brand of coeain. He had run his father $300 in debt, so heavy were his purchases of the poison.



Chicago long ago settled this coeain matter in the only logical way. The proprietor of a large downtown drug store noticed several years ago that at noon numbers of the shop girls from a great department store purchased certain catarrh powders over his counter. He had his clerk warn them that the powders contained deleterious drugs. The girls continued to purchase in increasing numbers and quantity. He sent word to the superintendent of the store. "That accounts for the number of our girls that have gons wrong of late," was the superintendent's comment. The druggist, Mr. McConnell, had an analysis made by the Board of Health, which showed that the powder most called for was nearly 4 per cent, coeain, whereon he threw it and similar powders out of stock. The girls went elsewhere. Mr. McConnell traced them and started a general movement against this class of remedies, which resulted in an ordinance forbidding their sale. Birney's Catarrhal Powders, as I am informed, to meet the new conditions, brought out a powder without coeain, which had the briefest kind of a sale. For weeks thereafter the downtown stores were haunted by haggard ycung men and women, who begged for "the old powders; these new ones don't do any good." As high as $1.00 premium was paid for the 4 per cent, coeain species. To-day the Illinois druggist who sells coeain in this form is liable to arrest. Yet in New York, at the corner of Forty-second street and Broadway, I saw recently a show-window display of the Birney cure, and similar displays arc not uncommon in other cities.



Regarding other forms of drugs there may be honest differences of opinion as to the limits of legitimacy in the trade. If mendacious advertising were stopped, and the actual ingredients of every nostrum plainly published and frankly explained, the patent medicine trade might reasonably claim to be a legitimate enterprise in many of its phases. But no label of opium or cocain, though the warning skull and cross-bones cover the bottle, will excuse the sale of products that are never safely used except by expert advice. I believe that the Chicago method of dealing with the catarrh powders is the right method in cocain- and opium-bearing nostrums. Restrict the drug by the same safeguards when sold under a lying pretence as when it flies its true colors. Then, and then only, will our laws prevent the shameful trade that stupefies helpless babies and makes criminals of our young men and harlots of our young women.





From Collier's Weekly, June 8, 1907.



PATENT MEDlCINES UNDER THE PURE FOOD LAW.



WITH the passage of the Food and ABSOLUTELY HARMLESS Drugs Act by Congress, the patent medicine frauds, which had fought its passage by fair means and foul—principally the latter—found three paths open to th«m. First, they could go out of business, rather than expose the real nature of the concoctions with which they have been so long "doping" the public; second, they could change their formulas, leaving out those dangerous ingredients which, under the law, must now be specified on the label before the Anodyne brought out by the Pure article can enter into interstate commeerce; third, they could remove from their labels the lying clauses which form the basis of their business, and print the percentages or proportions of such ingredients as are required to be labeled. There is a fourth alternative: they could ignore the law. A few are doing this in a small way; but mostly the Great American Fraud, for the first time on the defensive, has foregone its attitude of defiance. It is conforming to regulations; but, still true to its fundamental nature, it is by every possible subterfuge, while obeying the letter of the law, which says, "Let the label tell," evading and violating its spirit.



In brief, the national Food and Drugs Act requires that, to enter into interstate commerce, proprietary medicines containing cocain or its derivatives, opium or its derivatives," alcohol, chloroform, cannabis indica (hashish), chloral hydrate, or acetanilid or its derivatives must bear on the label in type not smaller than eight-point capital letters the percentage or proportion of such drugs; also that the label shall embody no "statement which shall be false or misleading in any particular." This last is vitally important in that it puts a quietus on the blanket claims of "cure" upon the labels, although, of course, the manufacturers will continue to swindle the public in the newspaper advertisements. The new law went into operation January 1, but labels now on hand may be used with supplemental labels, in the form of stamps or pasters, up to October 1.



The Cocain Purveyors Are Down and Out.



One definite, widespread, and immediate good has followed the new law. The purveyors of cocain snuffs have been, for the most part, driven out of business. These concoctions, ostensibly intended for the cure of catarrh, but in reality merely a supply for the cocain fiends which they themselves make, have been the first to succumb. Dr. Birney's snuff, Dr. Agnew-s snuff, the Cole. Gray and Crown cures have reached the end of their rope. Credit for this is due not only to the pure food law and many stringent local regulations, but also to the jobbers and retail druggists, who, despite the large profit in this line of business, have turned from it in disgust. In store after store of the better class, even where the law does not forbid the sale of cocain concoctions (as it does in New York City under Dr. Darlington's vigorous rfigime, in Chicago, and in a number of other large cities), my inquiries for the catarrh snuffs have been met with the curt rejoinder: "No; you can't buy that rotten stuff here." Out of twenty pharmacies which I visited in several cities of New York State, I was able to buy cocain in the form of snuffs, at only one. That was Robinson's drug store in Mount Vernon, N. Y., where a leering youth not only sold me a bottle of Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, but also bragged of the victims of the habit whom he "served regular," giving what he regarded as the highly amusing example of an unfortunate from Tuckahoe who came there every other day to "get his coke."



The Cole Medicine Company, by the way, has issued a circular to the drug trade announcing the issuance of a new nostrum for catarrh, that "can not give rise to any so-called 'habit' in child or adult." But it "does not propose to give up the manufacture of its original preparation . . . and its manufacture and sale will be continued as heretofore." This would seem to be a notification to druggists not troubled with a conscience that cocain will be obtainable "on the quiet" from the Cole concern. Perhaps they've thought better of it since the circular was issued. At any rate I know of several orders for the old powder that have received no answer. And, if they will take a layman's mild hint, they are pretty certain to get into serious trouble if they fake the Pure Food law for a toy whirligig, whereas it is really a buzz-saw. Their circular continues:

"It would seem that some of the jobbers have agreed not to push the sale of the old, reliable Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, and in one or two instances, have refused to supply it, on high moral grounds. The company knows that consumers do not become 'dopes' or wrecks: on the contrary, thousands of instances are known where the cure has done perfect workalong the lines intended."

The infamous Catarrh and Consumption "Cures."



Painful as it is to differ with as expert a set of liars as the Cole Company employs, the plain facts are deserving at least of mention. And these are the facts: Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure is not a catarrh cure in any sense. It is a preparation for the instigation of the cocain habit. From the wretched habitues which itself has bred it draws its main profit. Its manufacturers, the Cole Medicine Company, are deliberate slayers of men's bodies and women's souls. And this crew has the effrontery to appeal to honorable men in the retail drug trade—the very men who best know the deep damnation of cocainism—to support and uphold their business in the teeth of the law. I do not anticipate that they will receive a very hearty encouragement from a trade which has learned thoroughly to despise them and their kind.



Wiser is that firm which deals in Dr. Birney's Catarrh Powder. Letters from them announce their retirement since laws are being generally passed forbidding the sale of cocain. and they have always conducted "a law-abiding business." Edifying, indeed! "There is none so mean but he clings still to one poor virtue." That of the Birney concern is, it appears, meekness. Birney has always conducted a "law-abiding business," and yet there is in the whole United States no city whose God's acre does not hold the bones of his victims; whose jail records are not black with their crimes.



In the sudden light which the Pure Food law throws into certain dark corners, that widely-bruited pick-me-up for lassitudinous ladies, Vin Mariani, takes on a changed aspect. From the enthusiastic encomiums, given out for advertising purposes by sundry actresses, one might suppose that the so-called French preparation was at once the most bracing and the most harmless of concoctions. Across its label, however, the pure food law has recorded the warning fact: "Each ounce represents one-tenth of one grain of cocain." This shuts it out of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, all cities and towns in Massachusetts, and many other places. As the average American woman can read and is not a fool. I fancy that even in those localities where cocain can be sold only in patent medicine form without a prescription (as has been the case until recently in the District of Columbia, thanks to Senator and ex-Doctor Gallinger's efforts on behalf of the nostrum people), the Vin Mariani trade will rapidly decline.



Next to cocain nostrums, the most dangerous class of patent medicines is that containing narcotics, such as opium, morphin and cannabis indica. Various are the evasions and contortions resorted to by these dopes in their efforts to make the best of the new law. Piso's Consumption Cure is an illustrative case. No longer is it a "consumption cure" on its label. The old label reads: "Piso's Cure for Consumption." The new label, in the same type, and presenting much the same appearance, reads: "Piso's Cure;" then, in almost undistinguishable letters: "A Medicine for"—and then, larger again: "Coughs, Colds," etc. Across the bottom of the carton, in letters sufficiently clear to acquit the makers of any attempt to conceal the most important feature of the label, runs this legend: "Each fluid ounce contains % grain cannabis indica, 5 minims chloroform, and other valuable [sic!] ingredients."

Read more ►

Wiley 'Nostrums & Quackery'

USDA-AMA-APhA Pharmaceutical Racketeering


From Nostrums and quackery: articles on the nostrum evil and quackery by the American Medical Asociation

NOSTRUMS AND QUACKERY

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

In the latter months of 1905 the first of a series of articles appeared in Collier's, dealing with what was well named the Great American Fraud — that is, the nostrum evil and quackery. These articles ran for some'months and, when completed, were reprinted in booklet form by the American Medical Association. Tens of thousands of these books have been sold and there is no question that the wide dissemination of the information contained in the Great American Fraud series has done much to mitigate the worst evils of the "patent medicines" and quackery. How hard these forces of evil have been hit is. indicated by the organized attempt on their part to discredit and bring into disrepute the American Medical Association by means of speciously named "leagues" organized by those who are now or have in the past been in the "patent medicine" business, ostensibly to preserve what has been miscalled "medical freedom."

A few years before the first of the Collier's articles appeared, the American Medical Association commenced a campaign against the proprietary evil that existed within the medical profession. After cleaning to a marked degree this Augean stable, the Association extended its activities to the investigation of the more widely spread evil of "patent medicines" and quackery. It should be understood that in many cases there is no clear line of demarcation between what are commonly known as "patent medicines" and the "ethical proprietaries." As has been shown time and. again, it is not unusual for a nostrum first to be exploited only to the medical profession—as an "ethical proprietary." After a sufficient number of testimonials have been received from unthinking physicians the promoters of the nostrum advertise their wares direct to the public—as a "patent medicine." Again, some nostrum exploiters prefer to exploit their products exclusively through the medical profession, never advertising direct to the laity. On the other hand, there have been a few cases in which nostrums have first been marketed to the public direct and later have been advertised either under the same or a different name to physicians.

Many of the articles that have appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association during the last few years, dealing with quackery or "patent medicines," have been reprinted in pamphlet form for distribution to the laity. As the number of these pamphlets increased, it was thought desirable to bring all this matter together in one book. The present volume is the result. Mr. Adams' "Great American Fraud" articles aimed to cover the whole subject of- quackery and the nostrum evil in as broad and general a way as possible. From the nature of the ease, it was impossible to give very much space to any one fraud. The present book differs in just this respect from the Collier's reprint. While but comparatively few concerns are dealt with, they are shown up with special reference to the details of their fraudulent activity. By this means light has been thrown into the innermost recesses —the holy of holies of quackery. It is believed that a perusal of the cases here presented will so plainly show the fraud, the greed and the danger that are inseparable from ''patent medicine" exploitation and quackery that the reader must perforce be protected in no small degree from this wide-spread evil.

While most of the matter here given is the result of work done directly by the American Medical Association, we have not hesitated to take advantage of the splendid work done by the Post Office Department through the agency of the fraud order and also of that done by the federal and state officials in enforcing national and state pure food laws. It is an unfortunate fact that much of the valuable work done by officials entrusted with the execution of the Food and Drugs Acts is buried in official documents that never reach those to whom such work is of the greatest value. We make no apology, therefore, for presenting in as popular a form as is consistent with scientific accuracy, the results of much of this work. In addition to these sources of information we have quoted freely from the reports that have appeared in the British Medical Journal on nostrums and quackery.

For the purpose of classification, this book has been divided into three general departments; the first deals with quackery, the second with nostrums, while the third contains miscellaneous matter that did not seem to belong to either of the other two divisions. Actually, there is no clear line between these divisions. While, as a general tiling, the preparations classed as nostrums are such as are sold through the medium of drug stores, yet, in a few cases, they are sold by the manufacturer— or, more commonly, the exploiter—direct. On the other hand, while we have classed under quackery those concerns which profess to diagnose and treat disease, some of these institutions also list their medicaments with the wholesale and retail drug firms. The divisions, therefore, are purely arbitrary.

Just a word as to the distinction made between proprietary medicines and "patent medicines." Strictly speaking, practically all nostrums on the market are proprietary medicines and but very few are true patent medicines. A patent medicine, in the legal sense of the word, is a medicine whose composition or method of making, or both, has been patented. Evidently, therefore, a patent medicine is not a secret preparation because its composition must appear in the patent specifications. Nearly every nostrum, instead of being patented, is given a fanciful name and that name is registered at Washington; the name thus becomes the property of the nostrum exploiter for all time. While the composition of the preparation, and the curative effects claimed for it, may be changed at the whim of its owner, his proprietorship in the name remains intact. As has been said, a true patent medicine is not a secret preparation ; moreover, the product becomes public property at the end of seventeen years. As the term "patent medicine" has come to have a definite meaning to the public, this term is used in its colloquial sense throughout the book. That is to say, all nostrums advertised and sold direct to the public are referred to as "patent medicines"; those which are advertised directly only to physicians are spoken of as "proprietaries."

Read more ►

Wiley's Usurpation of Power Over Medicine and Diet

January 1912 NATIONAL DRUGGIST















DR WILEY'S LATEST ATTEMPT AT USURPATION OF POWER THE Board of Food and Drug Inspection of the Department of Agriculture has recently issued what it calls a Tentative Food Inspection Decision which regulates or assumes to regulate the importation and sale of opium cocaine and coca their derivatives and preparations

And this tentative decision has been submitted to the drug trade for such suggestions and criticisms as they may see fit to make although we notice that the letter of transmittal states that the Board has weighed all evidence possible and believes this decision to be correct Starting out with the rather platitudinous pronunce ment that the indiscriminate and promiscuous use of opium morphine etc is recognized as a great menace to the public health the decision undertakes to regulate not only the importation but all subsequent sales whether by wholesaler or retailer even going so far as to lay down rules regarding the dispensing of the substances on physicians prescriptions It prescribes a form of declaration which the importer and each and every subsequent purchaser or receiver down to the ultimate consumer shall make setting forth that the drugs are intended to be used for the treatment of disease only which is construed not to include the use of any of these products for inducing sleep in infants or similar purposes It provides however that the making of this declaration is waived when purchases are made on the prescriptions of authorized medical dental or veterinary practitioners though it requires that all such prescriptions shall be dated and signed and shall contain the name of the persons for whom they are intended and shall be kept on file by the pharmacists for five years and must not be refilled except on the written order of the original prescribes It also provides that each and every package containing any of the specified drugs shall bear in conspicuous manner on the label or labels including any wrapper or cover the word poison in uncondensed Gothic type and the skull and cross bones all printed in red on a white background or white on a red background There are other regulations relating to the entering and warehousing etc of the products which not immediately concerning the retail druggist we do not think it necessary to recapitulate here

We have quoted sufficiently to show that the proposed regulation is of great importance to the retailer in that it imposes upon him the obligation to see that all the cough cholera or diarrhea remedies and all liniments ointments or other preparations including such simple household remedies as Dover's powders paregoric etc which contain the specified drugs in even the minutest quantities must bear the poison and the skull and cross bones label to say nothing of other annoying and troublesome requirements

The Board pretends to derive its authority for this extraordinary assertion of power from a portion of Section 11 of the Food and Drugs Act which reads as follows Sec 11 The Secretary of the Treasury shall deliver to the Secretary of Agriculture upon his request from time to time samples of foods and drugs which are being imported into the United States or offered for import giving notice thereof to the owner or consignee who may appear before the Secretary of Agriculture and have the right to introduce testimony and if it appear from the examination of such samples that any article of food or drug offered to be imported into the United States is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this act OR IS OTHERWISE DANGEROUS TO THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES or is of a kind forbidden entry into or forbidden to be sold or restricted in sale in the country in which it is made or from which it is exported or is otherwise falsely labeled in any respect the said article shall be refused admission and the Secretary of the Treasury shall refuse delivery to the consignee and shall cause the destruction of any goods refused delivery which shall not be exported by the consignee within three months from the date of notice of such refusal under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe

Now the power conferred by this section is exceedingly broad and arbitrary much broader and more arbitrary than in our opinion should be conferred on any man or set of men however great and good they may be or however worthy the object sought to be attained But even under its most strained interpretation we fail to find anything in it to authorize such power as is here asserted Indeed whatever may be the powers that the section confers are conferred not upon the Secretary of Agriculture and certainly not on the Board of Food and Drug Inspection but upon the Secretary of the Treasury and the authority given relates altogether to the matter of importation and not in the slightest degree to the sale and distribution of the drugs

And the function of the Secretary of Agriculture under the section is limited to the mere examination of such samples of imported goods as may be delivered to him on his request by the Secretary of the Treasury and to the determination of the question as to whether they comply with the Food and Drugs Act or are otherwise dangerous to the health of the people of the United States or are of a kind forbidden entry into or forbidden to be sold or restricted in sale in the country in which they are made or from which they are exported How in the world this clause can be made a warrant for a set of regulations requiring the filing of declarations by retailers and physicians in the States and by all other purchasers of their intentions in purchasing the goods in question the manner of packing and labeling the articles the preservation and inspection of prescriptions orders and transactions in these commodities and for other directions for the conduct of purely infra state transactions we are at a loss to understand The truth of the matter is that this tentative decision is not really a procedure under the Food and Drugs Act at all having in its nature and scope nothing whatever to bring it within the intent and range of that act but is a barefaced and impudent attempt to amend the United States Statute of February 9 1909 entitled An Act to Prohibit the Importation and Use of Opium for other than Medicinal Purposes

This act confines itself exclusively to opium its preparations and derivatives Congress had it seen fit might have included other drugs conducive to dangerous habit formation but it remains that it failed to do so and the Board of Food and Drug Inspection has brazenly taken it upon itself to correct what it evidently regards as a Congressional delinquency by amending and extending this statute to include other drugs which they think ought to be included going so far as to assume to dictate the terms upon which they shall be sold long after the original packages have been broken and they have lost their character as articles of interstate commerce It is easy to detect in this move the fine Italian hand of our old friend Dr Harvey W Wiley who has a peculiar penchant for usurping authority and attempting to give the force of law to his private opinions

It will be remembered that in testifying before the Congressional Investigating Committee Dr Wiley complained very vehemently of the action of Solicitor McCabe the legal officer of the Department in overruling some of Dr Wiley's decisions involving questions of law He chafed under such interference and said to the Congressional Committee Give me a law officer and a good stenographer right here in my bureau and I will get the work done get it done better and get done at one hundredth part of the expense now involved in working through the Solicitor of the Department He significantly added would welcome a law officer of sympathetic views with mine as to what the law is It seems that his wish for unchecked power has been more than granted for Solicitor McCabe having resigned the Board now has no law officer at all Dr Wiley being practically the whole thing and having now no one to check or restrain him his high handed action in the present matter is only what might have been expected from a man of his temper and disposition under the circumstances What will be the effect if this assumption of power be sustained

The answer is plain Dr Wiley can at will on the pretext that it is dangerous to the health of the people of the United States prevent the importation of any article of food or drug that he pleases and thus can destroy the business of any individual at his whim or caprice or when it becomes to hi interest to do so

What constitutes a danger to health Is very largely a matter of individual opinion It can not always be definitely and scientifically ascertained and determined One set of officials may think a certain product is deleterious and their successors in office may disagree with them entirely Put a prohibitionist in power and he could under this pretext exclude all alcoholic beverages Dr Wiley or Mr CW Post of Postum Cereal fame holding as they do that caffeine is dangerous to health could prevent the importation and sale of tea and coffee Someone else in the office with equal show of reason and authority might forbid the importation of tobacco cigars and cigarettes There are a few cranks who regard common table salt as injurious and so if one of them were in Dr Wiley's place he could prevent the importation of salt if the contingency should ever arise for its importation

If Dr Kellogg of Battle Creek were in the office he would if he followed his teachings exclude sugar and candy from the country for he has recently stated that the free use of cane sugar is a very injurious practice causing catarrh of the stomach and bowels acid dyspepsia diabetes and disease of the liver and kidneys Dr Woods Hutchinson on the other hand advises parents to permit their children to eat these substances ad libitum and so if he should follow Dr Kellogg in office he would reverse the latter's ruling and admit sugar as a wholesome product And finally if a disciple of Mrs Eddy were to occupy Dr Wiley's position he would exclude all drugs of every nature as injurious to health And so we repeat that the question of what is dangerous to health is one so largely of opinion and of such variability that it ought not to be left to the decision and determination of any official or set of officials who may happen to be in office at a particular time

This is a matter of most serious import to the druggists of the country or it would be if we could bring ourselves to believe that the tentative decision here commented on would ever become binding We are however disposed to look upon it as another erratic outbreak of Dr Wiley's irrepressible itch for notoriety and power and can not believe that so well poised and experienced a man as Secretary Wilson will ever permit it to be dignified into an actual ruling of his Department The requirements of the regulations in themselves may or may not be of a salutary nature That is not the question here Whether they are or not it is admitted that the States have full power to regulate the sale of narcotic drugs within their own bounds and practically all of them have done so But Dr Wiley and his Board of Food and Drug Inspection have no more authority to make such requirements than has the humblest citizen of the republic and the attempt thus to override statutory and constitutional law and to usurp the police powers of the States is as offensive an exhibition of arrogance and gall as we have ever seen or read of Indeed we can not enter into the minds of the man or men who would dare attempt a thing of the kind nor can we understand the temper of the American people that will put up with it for a moment The opium habit is certainly a great evil It affects however a comparatively small number of people But the usurpation of authority and lawless government such as Dr Wiley here and in the past has so often attempted are a menace to the liberty and property rights of every citizen who may come within the scope of his influence for they strike at the very root of our government and carried to their logical conclusion mean ultimate anarchy and ruin As we have said the Board of Food and Drug Inspection invite criticisms of and suggestions regarding the proposed regulations We therefore recommend that unless the druggists of the country desire to submit themselves to the espionage of the Washington officials and want to go to the trouble of putting the poison and skull and cross bones label on each and every package of the large number of medicines they sell which contain the specified drugs that they ought to let the Board of Food and Drug Inspection hear from them in no uncertain tones

If Dr Wiley should be upheld in his present attempt to dictate to the retailers with regard to the substances here under consideration he could with equal warrant extend his authority to and make rules regarding any or all other drugs which the pharmacist handles and we believe he would not hesitate to do so in any case in which he thought he would be subserving the interests of the gang of political doctors who have control of the American Medical Association at Chicago of one of whose most important committees he is an active and zealous member and worker

Read more ►

THE TYRANNY OF THE MEDICAL TRUST

From The Flaming Sword:
The Monthly Magazine Devoted To The Science of Being




THE TYRANNY OF THE MEDICAL TRUST

Progressive Societies Organized to
Fight the Conspiracy of Doctors

THERE ARE THREE great associations of medical _ men in this country at the present time— the American Medical Association, the American Medical Union, and the Association of Independent Doctors. The American Medical Association, or medical trust, is composed chiefly of physicians of the so called "regulars" or Allopathic class, and some of the '"irregulars," or Homeopathic. Dr. Charles McCormick says: "There are many trusts now-a-days, but the medical trust is the most dangerous, because it is the most far-reaching and most tyrannical of any trust on earth. It not only reaches deep down into the pockets of the masses, be they rich or poor; but it trifles with human health and happiness, and even human life and personal liberty.

"This professional trust is determined to crush out all competition, that is, all other practitioners except their own. This trust is determined to make it unlawful to be born, or be sick, or die, without tipping the hat and opening the purse to one of their kind. We cannot even bury our friends without consent of a medical health officer, and he ignores certificates from all but his own clan. This trust strikes directly at the liberties of the people; for it says, in unmistakable language, the people must hire them at their prices, whether they wish to or not."

Surely, this is an infringement upon the personal rights of the citizen, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

In 1899, the American Medical Union was organized as a demand of the age. Dr. Bland says: "It came into being as the organized protest against the spirit of despotism embodied in medical statutes and politico-medical boards [of the Allopathic doctors]. The 'regulars' de- * nounced the Homeopaths, Thompsonians, and Eclectics as 'quacks,' ostracised them professionally, and persecuted them in the courts, under the malpractice laws. * * Persecution, under the then existing laws, not succeeding to the satisfaction of the 'regulars,' they asked the legislatures of the various states to pass laws limiting the right to practice medicine to those who could pass examinations before boards of 'regulars.'

"The 'irregulars' [that is, the Homeopaths, Thompsonions, Eclectics, etc.] opposed all such bills with such wisdom and vigor as to prevent their passage. Then the 'regulars' [the Allopaths] proposed to the Homeopaths that they join them against the other medical sects."

Members of the American Medical Union represent all schools of medical practice. The objects of this organization are: "First, to promote fraternal sympathy and practical cooperation among physicians of all schools, with a view to general progress in medicine. Second, to protect the natural and legal rights of its members from oppressive and unjust statutes in the various states, and to secure the repeal of all medical statutes based on the principles of despotic paternalism, and secure the enactment of laws which shall be liberal and just, and therefore in accord with the fundamental principles of our republic."

The Association of Independent Doctors was organized September, 1907. This organization promises a vigorous campaign. It is opposed to unconstitutional legislation and discrimination in favor of any sect or class of doctors. It is going to educate the public to a realization of the danger of compulsory paternalistic laws relating to health matters. The chief purposes for which this association is formed are :

1. "To establish and secure the maintenance of such freedom of practice in the field of the treatment of human ills, as will insure to the American public the best advantages possible. 2. To protect members of the association from unjust discrimination, and the perversion of laws framed by the [Allopathic] medical trust to secure a monopoly of practice. 3. To protect the members of this association from malpractice or other suits which may be brought against them by designing persons. 4. To abolish state lines within the United States, so far as the practice of the profession represented by this association is concerned, and thus force all doctors to be more competent each day, or fall behind in the competition. 5. To expose in the official journal to be published by this association, any person who is found guilty of practices unbecoming to legitimate practice, whether he or she be a member of this association or not. 6. To educate the public to a correct understanding of the epithets 'quack' and 'empiric' 7. To promote honesty in the keeping of statistics pro and con with reference to vaccination and other matters on which there may be a difference of opinion. 8. To set an example to the world that will insure admiration and respect."

The founders of this association are fighters for human liberty and Constitutional rights. We have watched their work from its initiation. If they continue in this just cause for liberty of practice, and for the right of any one to call, in case of sickness, any physician he or she sees fit, this association will, within a short time, outnumber the two foregoing associations. Its mottoes are: "Equality before the law," "equal rights to all," and "special privileges to none."

This association demands the enactment of a law placing all physicians on the same footing. And as our forefathers won in the contest for religious liberty, we, their sons and daughters, will bravely enter upon the struggle for the twin sister, "medical liberty."

"This policy made the United States what it is today. Men's energies were unhampered. The incentive to individual thought and action was strong. A man found his level sooner. Experience kept school, and great things were accomplished.

"Gradually a change has come about. Now-a-days, the tendency is to make a law to remedy every evil that crops up, ragardless of the fact that it is only by education that we make any real progress. Evils tend to correct themselves if left alone [if you educate the people], but no law can legislate a fool into a wise man.

"The doctor is in a position to extend a helping hand to mankind by educating them to have proper standards of judgment. But as an educated man himself, he is consistently opposed to laws which, under the pretense of protecting people, really stifle those instincts and energies which would otherwise develop and broaden people, and consequently make for progress.

"The decision in the Bishop case, of a year or two ago, that parents are not legally obliged to call in a physician to a sick child, is probably correct. Of course, it seems hard that a child should die without medical attendance, yet the parents might have called in a man who had a diploma, yet whose practice was equivalent to doing nothing; (for more people die of poisonous drugs administered at the hands of so called educated drug-doctors than die of disease or old age). If people can be legally compelled to employ a doctor, it is easy to go a step further and declare that they must select some particular 'pathy' or 'ism.'

"Laws which encroach upon individual liberty always work more harm than good. Better freedom with its mistakes and occasional tragedies, than the iron compulsion of law which leaves no room for choice, and teaches no lesson.

"There is more danger in too much law than in too little. Laws passed to regulate people are easily turned into a source of blackmail. We should never forget that the best governed country is also the least governed country. Fewer laws, of a fundamental character, and those enforced is sound social policy. Let us not endanger the magnificent growth and prosperity of the United States by retrograding to the old monarchial idea of having the government do too much, instead of relying on our powers. Let us safeguard our country while there is time, by a vigorous opposition to all laws which hamper the individual under whatsoever specious plea they may be presented." —Medical Brief.

Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Society

THAT THE Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Society hopes to form is a national movement for the protection of children and grown-ups from the serum fiends, who insist upon forcing their ideas upon all classes, denying opponents the right to think or choose whether they want to or not. It was organized in Chicago during the month of November, 1907. The cause of it was the announcement of the School Board that it had no power to admit children to school when ordered to shut them out unless vaccinated, and its proceeding to deny certain children their constitutional right.

"About a thousand dollars was subscribed to employ

attorneys for the purpose of carrying the matter into the courts to compel, by mandamus, the admission to school of the unvaccinated.

"It was declared by speakers at the meeting, some of whom believed in vaccination, that it is not a question of vaccination, but of the compulsory feature of it. They suppose that it was compulsory to be not vaccinated, and asked what the pro-vaccinationists would think of being forced to risk taking smallpox against their will; then declared they object to being forced to risk vaccination, which they regard as infinitely more dangerous than smallpox—it being shown by the Bulletin of the State Board of Health (?) that during the year 1906, there were only two deaths from smallpox in the entire state, while there were one hundred and thirty-five deaths from tetanus (lock-jaw), nearly all of which was caused by vaccination or toxin."

The Purposes of the Society

THE PRINCIPAL purposes of the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Society may be seen in the following extracts from its constitution:

"Sec. 1. To combat, with all the vigor of organization and right, the outrageous conduct of tht Chicago Board of Health (?) in its efforts to compel school c ildren to risk their lives and health by submitting to vaccination, or be deprived of their rights to attend the public schools.

"Sec. 2. To raise money to carry the matter to the highest courts in the United States, if necessary, to establish beyond question the right of parents and children to choose between using their own hygienic measures and taking the smallpox, or any other disease, and taking vaccine treatments which are alleged to be preventives of smallpox, but which have proved so dangerous that the health (?) boards dare not print true statistics about the cases of tuberculosis, erysipelas, cancer, scarlet fever, measles, and other diseases of children, caused by vaccination, and have so influenced the great dailies, that few of them will print any communications in which vaccination is condemned, even refusing to accept them as paid advertisements.

"Sec. 3. To secure facts in the matter of the dangers attending vaccination as compared with the dangers attending smallpox, and print them for circulation, together with true showings referring to the mercenary aspect of the members of the [Allopathic] medical trust which insists, they believe, in the efficacy of vaccination. * *

"Sec. 6. To never rest until brutal political doctors are driven from public office in shame. No man who insults callers at his office, because they dare protest against the endangerment of their families' lives and health, is fit to occupy a public position."—Ophthalmologist.

With continuity we ardently desire that this society may succeed, and thus hold the Allopathic Political Medical Trust responsible for the murder (death) of children by compulsory vaccination. As this Medical Trust has only a mercenary object in vaccinating children, we predict that it will drop its tactics concerning this infernal business, as one would drop a hot coal of fire.

Read more ►

Wiley Conspiracy to Establish a Physicians' Trust

A CONSPIRACY TO ESTABLISH A PHYSICIANS' TRUST.

In nearly if not all of the State Legislatures now in session, bills have been introduced which seek to compel manufacturers of proprietary and patent medicines to make public the formulas and private processes by which their preparations are made. A bill of similar import, dealing with interstate traffic in medicines of this class, has also been proposed in the House of Representatives at Washington.

The large number of these bills, their apparent spontaneity, and the noisy clamor of their advocates, would make it appear that the American people had, all of a sudden, awakened to the realization that they have long been victims of some monstrous wrong, and that at last, in anger and wrath, they had arisen in their might to wreak revenge upon the authors of their supposed miseries. That such, however, is not the case—that, in fact, there is no real demand from the general public for this legislation, except such as has been, by false representations, created by certain selfish interests, is well-known to all who have followed the current events in the drug trade for the past three or four years.

In order, therefore, that there may be a clear understanding of the real meaning of this apparently spontaneous movement, and of the influences which are behind it, and to the end that justice be done, not only to the manufacturers whose property it is proposed to destroy, but to the people in general, as well as to the 40,000 retail druggists of the country, of whose total volume of business at least 60% consists of proprietary medicines, we desire to make this plain statement of facts.

There is an organization of doctors known as the American Medical Association. Though it has been in existence for nearly 60 years, it had, up to three or four years ago, less than 5,000 members, out of a total of nearly 150,000 physicians in the entire country.

It was about or a little before that time, it will be remembered, that the great trust movement began—when the people of the United States, all of a sudden, seemed to have tired of doing business on individual lines, and were madly rushing into all kinds of pools, trusts and combinations. It appears that this contagion spread even to portions of the medical profession, for, all at once, a novel and well-conceived plan of organization was adopted by the clique in control of the American Medical Association, the purpose and design of which was to organize all of the doctors in the country into one gigantic medical trust.

There were at that time, and had been for many years, hundreds of county, state and other smaller medical societies, but these were all independent, and had no connection, the one with the other, beyond that bond of sympathy which might naturally be expected to exist among a number of men engaged in the honorable undertaking of trying to uplift the calling or profession to which they had devoted their lives. The new plan proposed to change all this, and contemplated a grand scheme of organization by which all of these small, independent societies should be merged into, or become mere dependents on the American Medical Association, and subject to its laws and regulations. The project was loudly proclaimed and eloquently advocated in the recognized "organ" of the association, known as the Journal of the American Medical Association; and the independent medical journals, not yet scenting danger or seeing the ulterior motives behind it, joined heartily in the endeavor to make the scheme a grand success. Paid "organizers" were employed, who visited the local societies, and these, co-operating with the independent journals, were able, in less than three years, to coax or coerce 15,000 physicians into affiliation with the great national association; so that, at the last meeting, it was announced that the membership was in the neighborhood of 20,000, or four times as many as it had been possible, after working 55 years along the old lines, to muster on the rolls of the association.

One of the conditions of membership in the association is the subscribing to the official organ, mentioned above. This journal is published from the sumptuous and spacious headquarters of the association at Chicago, and we learn from the report of the Board of Trustees at the last meeting, that the total income of the journal for the year 1904 was $254,731.45, or probably more than that of a hundred of the smaller independent journals of the profession.

Not satisfied with the one national organ, great and powerful though it is, and resentful of the spirit of revolt which was occasionally manifested in the independent medical press, each of the state societies was induced to establish a journal of its own, ostensibly to publish the proceedings of the association, but really, as it has afterwards developed, to become whippers-in and drummers for the American Medical Association and its official organ. Then there began a systematic campaign against such of the independent journals, as had refused to mould their opinions to suit the leaders at Chicago, and members of the association were boldly urged to stop their subscriptions thereto. and to refuse to read any sample copies of the same which might be sent to them. In pleased anticipation of the ultimate success of this effort to stop free discussion and to monopolize the medical press, the California State Medical Journal complacently tells us "that the day of the privatelyowned medical journal is passing away and its place will be taken by the Journal of the American Medical Association and the various state journals."

With the amazing growth in membership, as detailed above, with the constantly-increasing strength and prosperity of the official organ and its auxiliaries, the officers at Chicago assumed an air of arrogance and insolence, not only towards those physicians who had refused to come into the fold, and to the independent medical press, but also towards the manufacturers of. and dealers in, all kinds of drugs and medicines in the United States. About a year ago these medical autocrats started out on a project to regulate and control the drug industries of the country, and their initial move was the issuance of an edict to the manufacturers of that class of proprietaries intended exclusively for physicians' prescriptions, notifying them that they must forthwith furnish to the Association's Council on Chemistry and Pharmacy, the names and exact quantities of the ingredients which enter into the composition of their several remedies, together with their methods and secret processes of manufacture, all of which should be so complete as to enable the council to "verify them;" that is, to reproduce the preparations, "and to determine their future status from time to time." It was at the same time declared, that unless the manufacturers acceded to these demands, their remedies should be refused admission into a volume which it was proposed to publish, that would contain all remedies of the kind that members of the American Medical . Association could "ethically" prescribe or use in their practice. These manufacturers were also warned that failure to comply with the requirements thus glibly set forth, would mean future exclusion from the advertising pages of the "organ," with all the pains and penalties of a general boycott which such exclusion was supposed to carry with it.

It seems, however, that these officials took themselves too seriously. The manufacturers, apparently, did not place as much importance in the official endorsement of the "Council" and in its implied threat of a boycott as these egotists had anticipated. Comparatively few of them seemed willing to take this Council of Chemistry and Pharmacy into their confidence and to entrust to its keeping the valuable trade secrets upon which the prosperity of their business is based, and it was noticed that they began to withdraw their advertisements from the "organ" until, at this writing, the amount of such advertising remaining in the journal is insignificant as compared to that it carried in the heydav of its prosperity.

* * *

Finding their principal source of revenue thus suddenly cut off, disappointed in their expectations, but unable to retrace their steps or retrieve their position, the gentlemen in charge at Chicago seemed to have become embittered and filled with hatred and chagrin, not only toward that class of proprietaries which they had sought vainly to control, but to those which are advertised and sold to the public as well. A few months ago, as if by concerted action, the Journal of the American Medical Association and the auxiliary state journals began to teem with articles on the danger to the public from patent medicines, and various suggestions were proposed to overcome "the great evil." The idea of educating the general public to the danger to which it was thus exposed was first proposed, but immediately abandoned as too slow and difficult, and it was finally determined to strike at the manufacturers of these articles through Congress and the State Legislatures. As a starter on this program of destruction, as we learn from the official organ, a Committee on Legislation was appointed, and the following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, That the Committee on Legislation of the American Medical Association be, and is hereby directed to bring the influence of the entire medical profession to bear in securing the enactment by various State Legislatures of an act, as nearly as possible uniform, prescribing that all "patent" or "proprietary" incdi cines shall carry an exact formula of their contents plainly printed on each original package, and make the contents conform to the formula.

Resolved, That the said committee memorialize Congress to enact a law which shall prescribe that all "patent" or "proprietary" medicines and all advertising matter relating to the same which shall fail to comply with the foregoing conditions shall be excluded from the United States mails and from interstate commerce.

In order to effectively carry out this propaganda, the committee recommended the association "to establish a Bureau of Medical Legislation, to be located in the association's building in Chicago." That this committee has

faithfully and energetically been at work is evident from the fact that a bill, framed along the lines indicated in the resolutions above quoted, is now pending before Congress, and that, almost simultaneously, bills practically identical in terms and verbiage, and framed in accordance with the instructions of the Legislative Committee, have been introduced in nearly if not all of the State Legislatures now in session.

From the facts as we have detailed them, it can be seen that this crusade is not the result of a great national uprising, as the uninformed might imagine, and as it is sought to make the legislatures believe, but that it all proceeds from the clique of political doctors who, for the time being, are in control of the great American Medical Association. Now, for whose benefit is this coterie of physicians laboring so earnestly and with such holy zeal? Of course, if we are to believe their own professions, it is all for the benefit of the "dear people," and the American Medical Association is purely a benevolent institution, organized and maintained solely for philanthropic purposes, and without hope of reward or selfish advantage to the association itself, its individual members, or to the officials who are at present directing its activities. But the average legislator will understand, if the average citizen does not, that behind most special legislation, however glozed over it may be with humanitarian pretensions, the controlling motive is pecuniary gain or greed of power. And we do not believe that Congress or any State Legislature can be hoodwinked and deceived by the false play of the agents of this Great Medical Trust into passing laws whose purpose and design is to crush out and destroy all competition in the healing of the sick, and to give to its members a complete monopoly of the whole field of curative therapeutics, so that it will be impossible for a man to get a simple remedy for a cold, headache or other minor ailment without first hunting up a member of the American Medical Association and paying him a prescription fee.

* * *

The arrant hypocrisy in the pretensions of humanitarianism on the part of these doctor-politicians ought to be apparent to the most guileless individual, but if proofs be needed they shall be forthcoming, and out of their own mouths. We cannot, of course, follow them behind the closed doors of their secret deliberations, and it is natural that they should not proclaim their real motives to the public; but occasionally a member, more boldly brutal than his fellows, or one lacking discretion, or for the moment being off his guard, gives the whole snap away and lets the feline out of the bag. And in order to see exactly how they talk when the public ear is not attending, and when, therefore, there is no ocasion for assuming a benevolent air, we have taken the trouble to go carefully through a few copies of the Journal of the American Medical Association and one or two of its satellites, and we give extracts therefrom, which may help to reveal the real design behind all this agitation against proprietary and patent medicines, and against the druggists who make their living by selling them.

* * *

To begin with, we will quote from the Journal of the Association itself, which is the source of inspiration for all the smaller association and other subservient organs scattered throughout the country. The Journal, with its income of a quarter of a million dollars a year, in its issue of May 6, 1905, urges physicians not even to use one of those proprietary preparations that are especially made for them, and gives as its reason, that "the patient will become acquainted with what the preparation is good for, and will buy it direct," and consequently some doctor will be cut out of a prescription fee.

Before the Academy of Medicine of New York City, January 18, 1906, proprietary medicines and their bearing on the interests of the association were being discussed, and Dr. Peabody, after considering the difficulty of getting rid of the evil, is reported as declaring, finally, that "we can't prevent people from buying what they want." With this rather pessimistic utterance, Dr. W. Gilman Thompson seemed to take issue, for he proposed as a means to this desired end—that is to prevent people from getting what they want (in other words, to compel them always to go to a doctor and get a prescription before taking medicine) — that:

The Academy support and work for a bill compelling the labeling of all such preparations with a statement of the character and quantity of the ingredients contained in them, and providing a heavy fine for failure on the part of the manufacturers to comply with it.

The California State Medical Journal, quoted above, in its issue for September, 1905, says:

Ask any pharmacist what will eventually happen if you give a patient a prescription for one of these proprietaries. He will tell you that in due course, the patient, or his wife, or his mother, or his children, or his sisters, or his cousins, or his aunts, or his wife's friends will come into the store and buy more of the same stuff— but without a prescription. In other words, you have lost a patient.

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 18, 1905, page 894, it is charged "that the druggists are cutting the doctors' throats by selling patent medicines," and an implied threat is made to the •druggists in the words that they "ought to see the propriety of not working against the doctors' interests;" that is, by selling patent medicines to the people, and in this way cutting the doctors out of prescription fees. We see no love for the dear people here.

Dr. Horatio C. Wood, Jr., one of the leaders in the present crusade, jn the. Journal of the American Medical Association, June 10, 1905, makes a calculation of the amount spent only in advertising proprietaries, and says that that advertising "represents just so much as coming out of the pockets of the doctors."

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, September 9, 1005, page 801, doctors are told that it should be a rule that no proprietary medicine should be delivered to the patient in the original package—this precaution being taken to prevent the purchase of future supplies without a prescription.

Dr. Horatio C. Wood, Jr., again in the Journal of the American Medical Association, June 10, 1905, speaking of physicians' proprietaries, says: "Indeed the employment of these fancy-named specialties is a direct temptation to self-medication," by which, of course, the doctor is the loser, since it cuts him out of a prescription fee. How altruistic!

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 4. 1905, objection is made to proprietaries on the ground that "they encourage the patient to prescribe for himself, and, as the proprietary manufacturer becomes richer, the physician becomes poorer." It is the doctors' interests, and not those of the people that are here considered, it seems to us.

The Medical Mirror, January, 1906, says: Conditions of medical men in the big cities are appalling. In this city (St Louis) there are more than 1,100 doctors who are not making a decent living. Doctors who are sober, honest, brainy, educated and talented, are living on 10-cent lunches in the saloons, go unshaven and with shiny clothes on their backs. • * • But, Allah he praised for one thing, the tocsin has sounded! A campaign of education has been inaugurated by a number of reputable and trustworthy journals in various parts of the country, new light is being disseminated, and little by little it is breaking through and dispelling the gloom. Legislation against quack, proprietary and patent medicines is going merrily on in several States.

The Medical Times, April, 1905, page 117, in a leading editorial on proprietary medicine, says:

This is a subject vital to every physician. * * * We will merely repeat here the specific statement we have already made, to the effect that in one year $62,000,000 has been expended on patent medicines in the United States, enough to give to every practitioner in the country a yearly income of $2,000. * * * In the face of such facts as these, all talk of love of humanity, altruism, selfabnegation and the like, becomes cheap and nauseating. • » • It appears to us that such buncombe should give place to homely commonsense.

If we had the time we could fill a volume with just such extracts, revealing how these doctors discuss this matter among themselves and in their journals, where there is no necessity of donning the cloak of hypocrisy, or to cant and prate about the public good. But we shall waste no more time on this unpleasant business. What we have printed is sufficient to strip this medico-political clique of their altruistic pretensions, and to exhibit them in all their coldhearted brutality.

* * *

But these philanthropic gentlemen have other and even more radical legislative schemes up their sleeves, as we shall see. Muffled up in a profound self-conceit, and forgetful of the fact that they are living in a free country, they want to make it an infamous crime to doubt their infallibility, or to criticise their conduct. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, a short time ago, there appeared an editorial with the startling heading, "Treason Against the Government." In that article a New Orleans paper was most severely arraigned for presuming to criticise the physicians in charge of the U. S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service for failing to successfully combat the yellow fever in the recent epidemic in that city.

The Journal says:

It Is one thing to discuss debatable theories and to expose dishonesty wherever found, but the events of the epidemic can not by any artifice be twisted into any excuse for this New Orleans paper. * * * The time is close at band for the creation by statute of a new variety of treason. * * * If it be treason in time of war for a man to betray his country's military plans, It certainly should be made treason for a man or a publication in time of deadly peril from disease, to foment, by false allegations, public lack of confidence in the government's plan of rescue, and in the integrity and ability of the men (that is, the physicians) who risk their lives to save the community froni unnecessary deaths. Than this, no treachery can be more base. Physicians, citizens, and the reputable press should join in asking stringent penalties for this crime against the nation, against humanity.

Treason is the crime of highest degree. The punishment in all countries for the offense is death. And yet it is proposed that the "mere fomenting of a lack of confidence" in certain subordinate government officials (if they happen to be doctors) shall constitute the offense, and this notwithstanding the Constitution declares that:

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

In the early days of our country one of the political parties of the time sought to keep itself in power and strengthen its hold on the government by making it a crime to publish "any false, scandalous or malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either house of congress, or the president, with intent to defame them or bring them into contempt or disrepute." Such an attempt to stifle constitutional discussion, and to throttle the press, aroused the indignation of the American people to such an extent that the party responsible for the measure was driven from power, and the infamous Sedition law was wiped from our statute books forever. But even those partisans, bitter though they were, only proposed to punish the offense with fine and imprisonment, and then only for criticisms on the highest officials of government. But here it is urged by the organ, the representative, the mouthpiece of the American Medical Association, that it shall be treason to criticise mere subordinate officials, provided they be doctors, and that the punishment shall be death!

* * *

Not satisfied with this infamous attempt to muzzle the press, and thus prohibit criticism of their doctrines and conduct, and fearing that even the compulsory publication of the formulas may not quite effect the purpose they have in view, they seem determined to make doubly sure the monopoly they seek by denying to the proprietary manufacturers the use of the United States mails and excluding them from interstate commerce.

And so we learn from the special Washington correspondent of the National Druggist, in our February issue, that the Legislative Council was in that city and, among other things, was "asking the government to exclude from the mails and from interstate commerce all proprietary remedies'' whose manufacturers refuse to comply with the demands of the American Medical Association. That this council was but following out instructions from the association itself appears from the following extract from the report of the Committee on Legislation (Journal of the American Medical Association, July 22, 1905,) as follows:

It has been suggested that postal regulations governing the transmission through the mails of objectionable medical literature, or of alleged medical matter, ought to be enacted. These matters in due season will be taken up by the heads of the legislative departments of the government at Washington, and, when properly formulated, will be brought before the National Legislative Council.

* * *

Fearing that, after all, the results they are aiming at cannot be attained by bringing fair influence on Congress and the State Legislatures, as they are at present constituted, it is proposed that the association enter actively into politics and try to get its members elected to the legislatures, and the following excerpt is also taken from the report above mentioned:

Your committee has felt itself embarrassed from time to time by the fact that it has had comparatively few representatives of its profession in the Congress. This was sufficiently exemplified in the Fifty-eighth Congress, in which there were but two medical men in the Senate. * * * In this connection the committee urges that in the legislative field the duty of the profession to themselves and to the public is very distinct. * * * No profession can complain if it is the victim of inimical legislation passed during absence from these posts of duty.

Not satisfied with working their way into Congress and the State Legislatures, they are trying to get a special representative in the highest Councils of the nation, where he will be in a position to wield the greatest influence in behalf of his association; and so, the Legislative Council, on January 10, adopted a resolution urging the members of the association to work for the establishment of a special Medical Department, whose Chief should have a place in the Cabinet of the President of the United States.

As showing the effective work that this committee has already done in this scheme of getting into the legislatures and controlling legislation in the interest of the American Medical Association, we will quote once more from the report of the Committee on Legislation, as made to the Association at its last meeting, which will be found in the Journal of the American Medical Association of July 22. 1005. page 259. According to that report the Committee at that time had an emissary in every county in the United States working quietly to create sentiment in favor of the legislative ideas of the association. The Committee further reported that:

It has secured a list of local political leaders of every organized and recognized political party in the United States. The list already embraces the names of several political managers in each of 900 counties, the entire list aggregating in excess of 11,000 names. Through this list the central committee is in position to bring questions of pending legislation to the serious and thoughtful consideration of the men who, in their respective localities, exercise a preponderating influence in determining political action. • • « The political list is arranged so that the dominant politics of each county and of each congressional district is indicated, as well as the political affiliations of each member whose name appears on the list, t thus happens that we are able to move with a certain degree of accuracy in invoking political influence in behalf of such measures as are taken up by your committee. This list will be kept alive by asking for revisions from time to time, especially after each general election, and will, we are sure, prove to be an effective medium of action in the agitations which arc pending in the immediate future. The National Legislative Council is to be recognized as one of the most important elements in the mechanism of national agitation. It is before this body that all questions of proposed or pending legislation touching questions of interest to the medical profession are submitted for careful consideration. • • * The championship of a measure by your committee is accepted by the Congress as the championship of the American Medical Association, which, being the representative organization of the medical profession of the United States, makes its voice, in effect, the voice of the entire profession.

* * *

There may be those who, having a high opinion of the almost sacred calling of the physician, imagine the American Medical Association is a great benevolent institution, whose only aim is the public good. But it seems to us. if the acts and utterances of the officials now in charge of the organization fairly and justly represent its policies and principles, that it is rather to be feared as a public enemy. Here is a body of men much above the average in force of character, ability and standing in their communities, with agents and emissaries scattered all over the country, forming an organization that can outwatch Argus with his hundred eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred hands. Instinct with one purpose, and that to secure legislation favorable to its own interests, "it has a list of local political leaders of every organized and recognized party. This list is so arranged that the dominant politics in each county and congressional district are indicated, as well as the political affiliations of each member." It, therefore, knows no party. It affiliates with any, whatever may be its principles, provided their own selfish ends can be furthered. As was Jay Gould, they are Democrats in Democratic states and Republicans in Republican states. All parties look alike to them when seeking aid and influence in securing the enactment of laws which will give them the monopoly they seek.

We will not do the medical profession of the country or the members of the American Medical Association the injustice to believe that they are entirely responsible for the conduct of the clique in Chicago, or that as a whole they endorse their high handed actions. It may be that it is simply a case of a few men, dressed in a little brief authority, getting beside themselves. But it is a maxim of law that qui facit per alium facit per se—in other words, that a man is responsible for the deeds of his agents acting within the sphere of their authority, and, therefore, it seems to us, that the good of the medical profession, of the science of medicine, of the public at large, and of the American Medical Association, itself, would be best subserved, if some restraint were put upon those now directing the affairs of the great association; or, better, that they should be summarily removed from office, and that wiser and better men be put in their places. In the meantime, it 1 is the duty of every good citizen to be on the lookout for I the legislative schemes of these conspirators, in order that none of them may, by inadvertance or otherwise. slip through Congress or our State Legislatures.

Read more ►