A Pill For The Public

Patent Medicines, by Professor A. J. Clark (Fact, May, 1938).

The select committee set up by H.M. Government in 1914 to “consider and enquire into the question of the sale of patent and proprietary medicines” expressed the hope that the National Insurance Act would curtail the business in secret remedies. Their optimism has been far from justified, and the N.H.I. Act, having failed to put an end to illness, fanned the belief, already widespread, that health could be obtained from a bottle. A number of capitalists, more perspicacious than H.M. Commissioners, were well aware of this. They sank money in the production of patent medicines, and by one device or another encouraged the belief. The sick public, uninformed and receptive, swallowed thousands of panaceas from almost plain water to poisonous drugs, and paid well for the privilege. The proprietors, on the other hand, waxed prosperous.

Prof. A. J. Clark has set out the details in the Fact for May. Let us say here that the monograph is not written from a working-class angle, and that this entails a certain criticism, to which we shall allude later. But, subject to these limits, practically every aspect is covered in a simple and straightforward manner. We think that Prof. Clark might have detailed some of the huge profits made in the trade—for instance, Beecham’s Pills, Ltd., which markets many well-known proprietaries, such as Germolene, Iron Jelloids, Veno’s, Amami shampoos and the like, and has a capital of about two and a half million pounds, declared this year a profit of over £600,000 and a dividend of 85 per cent.

All sections of the community take patent medicines (the expression “Patent Medicine” only strictly applies to those registered under letters patent, of which there are actually very few). The volume of retail trade is, therefore, very large — possibly between £20 and £30 millions annually. The Government takes a rake-off in the shape of medicine stamp duty, which amounted in 1928-9 to one and one-third million pounds, since when it has declined by 44 per cent. Manufacturers found that by slightly altering the composition and printing on the package a pseudo-scientific formula, meaningless to the man in the street, they were legally exempt from paying the duty and pocketed the difference. We know of no case in which the price to the public was afterwards reduced. The law relating to patent medicines is, in fact, a confused jumble of statutes and regulations dating from 1787. It is still possible to use bogus testimonials from fictitious physicians, and perhaps even real physicians! There is a law of the most severe character against the supply of abortifacients; but under cover of wording which is well understood a loophole exists for the business to go on, a business for the most part in either useless or dangerous and always expensive drugs.

Various committees of enquiry have been set up, notably that of 1914, referred to above. Their report was devastating in its revelations and indictment of the patent medicine trade. “Naturally, however, it attracted no attention whatever at the time of its appearance and was allowed rapidly to pass out of print and is now very difficult to obtain. The reasons for its rapid disappearance are unknown” (page 29). The publications of certain analyses carried out by the British Medical Association vanished in an equally mysterious manner. The interests concerned were quite averse to anything being done, and it was pot until 1920 that a “Proprietary Measures Bill” based on the 1914 report, was introduced into the Lords, but “was allowed to perish for lack of Parliamentary facilities.” There’ were further Acts in 1931 and 1936, both of which failed to become law. In 1936, however, the Government became alarmed at the decline in revenue, and a committee was set up to. consider this aspect alone. Their report, published in 1937, suggested a much wider basis of taxation, and “a Bill was promptly prepared in accordance with the recommendations of the select committee of 1937; it did not attempt any reform of the secret remedies fraud, but was simply designed to increase revenue by extending the scope of the incidence of the Medicine Duties. . . . The Bill perished chiefly because it proposed to tax cosmetics, a reasonable but highly unpopular proposal” (page 2$). As a matter of fact, there was much internal opposition to the bill, in particular from chemists, who would have lost certain privileges by its provisions and been placed on the same footing as grocers and other traders. No attempt whatever was made to protect the consumer at any stage.

Patent medicine proprietors are able to exercise a considerable pull over the Press, as the biggest single group of advertisers. One firm stated that it spent one-quarter million pounds in 1937 on publicity, largely in the Press. One of the effects of this expenditure is a virtual censorship of anything likely to endanger the patent medicine interests. Millions of people every year, who from malnutrition, bad housing, and overwork fall ill, succumb readily to the clever propaganda of the big advertising, often handled by firms which specialise in this work. And the more readily since the occasional exposures of danger and fraud rarely creep into the popular Press. These dangers and fraud are very real. A certain check is provided by recent poison regulations, but only this year 73 people in the U.S.A. were killed by a preparation before supplies were stopped. And there would have been no legal restriction on its sale in Great Britain. There is no account, of course, of those drugs which only kill if taken in time, or of the false inducement of security and hope. It is also certain that many workers afford patent remedies by cutting the purchase of vital necessities.

Prof. Clark suggests measures for dealing with the problem. It may be that for a variety of reasons a Government will one day be persuaded to frame new laws. They may even be operated. But the real trouble is that people are ill, and the problem one of preventing it—an impossibility while capitalism lasts. The patent medicine proprietors are in business for profit and indifferent to the harm and suffering they may inflict. Capitalist governments have already had 24 years since the first commission’s report to demonstrate their care for the working class. And the last Bill presented to the House was an attempt to increase revenue from the industry! Is it unlikely that any advantage to the workers from future enactments will only be incidental? There can be few grosser instances of the evil workings of the profit system than the patent medicine industry.
KILNER