The regulation and control of the manufacture and sale of food and drugs for infants / by Eric Pritchard.

  • Pritchard, Eric, 1864-1943.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The regulation and control of the manufacture and sale of food and drugs for infants / by Eric Pritchard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    stituted for it. It follows from these enactments that any person is entitled to purchase from a qualified chemist for administration to infants proprietary medicines containing scheduled poisons, or proprietary medicines containing unscheduled poisons, and soothing syrups and medicines of all kinds dispensed at the dis- cretion of the chemist, the only restriction being that in the case of scheduled poisons, belonging to Part I. and Part II. a label bearing the word “Poison,” to- gether with the name and address of the seller, must be applied to the bottle, while the name and address of the purchaser and the purpose for which they are required must be entered in the book kept for that purpose when poisons belonging to Part I. are purchased. I have been told of one case in which two drams of paregoric (containing half a grain of morphia) were purchased daily, and, in spite of the “ poisons ” label, administered to an infant, who at this early age must clearly have acquired the morphia habit. Apart from the general inadequacy of these pro- visions for protecting a perfectly helpless class of individual, the particular weakness lies in the want of proper control over the sale of proprietary medicines which, as I have already stated, may be misleading in description, and which have no standard of composition or strength. In no European country besides our own is the principle of leaving each individual to work out his own salvation in respect of taking such dangerous drugs recognised or encouraged by the State. In every other country the public are protected against the specious and insidious appeals to valetudinarianism which are the strongholds of quacks. For instance, the public sale of secret remedies is forbidden through- out Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and many Swiss cantons, either completely or almost completely. In