Report ... on the adulteration of drugs. 2nd March 1838.

  • Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report ... on the adulteration of drugs. 2nd March 1838. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/26 (page 15)
    Some of these adulterations arc in all probability practised with a distinct purpose of fraud. Such may be assumed to be the ob¬ ject where the adulteration is of a kind which may deceive the British importer and wholesale druggist. In regard to some sub¬ stances, such for example as Opium and Senna., the deception is frequently, perhaps generally successful. In the case of opium I feel satisfied, that, so long as the wholesale druggist trusts to its external characters alone, he must be liable to be sometimes de¬ ceived. It is not easy otherwise to account for instances, which have come under my notice, of opiums widely different in real value having been bought and sold at nearly or absolutely the same prices, where the transactions took place between experien¬ ced individuals in the highest walk of their trade. As to senna, so successfully is it adulterated, that some of the first members of the wholesale trade in London are scarcely aware, that the highest- priced variety of this drug, the Alexandrian senna, is never pure, but invariably mixed to a considerable extent with another and com¬ paratively inert plant: At least they were not aware of this fact in 1834, when I had occasion to converse with them on the sub- ject. In these, and all other cases of the like kind, there seems reason for suspecting, that deliberate fraud is practised by the fo¬ reign merchant or producer. But there are other sophistications also practised by the pro¬ ducer or merchant abroad,-—and these probably the most nume¬ rous,—for which he is only in part accountable, or which at all events he practises without any intention of deceiving the mer¬ chant or wholesale dealer in Britain. For the spurious articles are perfectly wrell known to the home trade ; and the wholesale price varies regularly with the purity of the imported article, and even according to its exact degree of purity. It is impossible, for example, to imagine that the maker or foreign merchant has any fraudulent view to personal profit in adulterating Scammony or Gamboge, as he actually docs, to the extent formerly mention¬ ed; because the external characters of the different qualities are precise and such as cannot be mistaken by any one of common experience ; their import prices differ accordingly to a great ex¬ tent ; and in fact I have found by analysis, that these prices in¬ dicate very accurately their relative purity. What then, must be naturally asked, is the object of this practice ? Is it that the wholesale druggist may be enabled to impose on the retailer with