PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. years ago, by this so-called council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association. The competing medicines that possess superior values in the amelioration of human suffering were to be acted on later, after due consideration. It was not a question of proprietary rights versus freedom of manufacture. Neither was it the laudable question of curative values versus medicinal uselessness, as stated by the chairman of the council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association in a letter to me that the proprietary products made by the favored German manufacturers— * * * * Are recognized and will need no investigation on the part of the council. If your preparations are patented, * send the number and date of the patent. The therapeutic properties of the preparations need not be gone into except in brief. The main thing in this case, of course, is to define the chemical position. That being done, the rest is easy. There is no class of men so sensitive to ridicule as the medical profession. This fact has made the American people the victims of the German corporation. Were the maintenance of this German monopoly and the discrediting of American competition merely a question of merchandise the Government would not stand for it. It is far worse. Being a question of human life the public naturally have a right to think that the function of this council was in the interests of the health of the people. It is the cleverest device ever foisted before the American people for the patenting of control of opportunity in behalf of special interests by the manipulation of the confidence of guardians of the health of the Nation. The tremendous prestige of the honorable positions held by the individual members of this council, and the knowledge that the issue involved human lives, made it unthinkable that any such class of men would permit the use of their reputations in this scurvy attempt to discredit medicines having the power to alleviate human sufferings. Thus, the weighty influence of the high prestige of Harvey W. Wiley, then Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Agriculture, the chief of the Drug Laboratory of the Bureau of Agriculture, along with the power of the high positions in our leading medical colleges held by the other members of that body, have produced deep-rooted prejudices and fixed opinions of the prescribers of medicines and established an insidious boycott of medicines capable of reducing the period of sickness as quickly and in many instances much more rapidly than any other medicine made anywhere by anybody. By the display of the official positions of the individuals composing the council on pharmacy and chemistry there is accomplished the appearance of the indorsement of favored patent medicines and the condemnation of meritorious chemical compounds of known composition by our Government and the leading medical colleges of our country that should prohibit the use of their stationery for such purposes. Six years ago the Government bought some acetyl-salicyl-phenetidin on the open market. It was analyzed and found to be a true chemical compound. The chief of the drug laboratory, Lyman F. Kebler, the so-called referee (he stated) to whom the council on pharmacy and chemistry had referred this chemical compound to for a report on it, told me that he could not report favorable upon it, "because it passed through the alimentary canal without being PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. absorbed." He gave as authority an article that had been published in Germany. In the stipulation contained in the agreement sent me by the chairman of the council on pharmacy and chemistry all that was essential was that The main thing in this case, of course, is to define the chemical position. That being done, the rest is easy. The therapeutic properties of the preparations need not be gone into except in brief. Under legislative law the chief of the drug laboratory of the Bureau of Agriculture has to admit that these competing synthetics are chemical compounds of known composition. Under the caption as "referee" of the council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association he avoids approval by sophistry on specious technicalities. After several letters from me demanding evidence in substantiation of his statement to me he supplied the name and issue of the German publication. For this gentleman to be so well posted in the literature of the world, especially in a branch of science different from his vocation and that printed in a foreign tongue, caused me to smile when I thought of the many other such partisan statements that had been conveniently printed in Germany and astutely circulated in the United States for the purpose of discrediting the chemical compounds which I had created. The article he referred to was printed in the Berechte der Deutschen Gesellschaft, volume 37, page 3975, and entitled, "Acetyl-salicylphenetidin.' See page 69 of my monograph. The article was prepared by two of the leading chemists of Germany and one of its greatest authorities on pharmacological testing. It was honest in what was stated, but dishonest in conveying misleading inference by adroitly omitting to state the principal part of the whole truth. It gave me credit as being the originator of the compound and admitted that the process, published by me, for the manufacture of this synthetic chemical compound, was correct. It admitted that the medicine does not reduce the normal temperature of the body, and that it does not interfere with the oxygen-carrying function of the red-blood corpuscles-so vitally essential for life. But it deftly omitted to tell the important part of the whole truth that where an abnormal temperature or fever is present as the result of the germs of disease that the chemical compound does remove the excess temperature with safety. When that quality of not doing harm whilst doing good is the valuable feature of the compound which I added to this world's sum of knowledge, and is the one true reason for its existence, what does the suppression of such important knowledge indicate! The product that is the nearest approach to this unequaled chemical compound in relieving mankind of the pains of neuralgic conditions and the fevers caused by infectious diseases, colds, etc., is controlled by the favored German corporation, there being none other made in this country. Statistics state that there are 25,000 deaths from typhoid fever and 100,000 deaths from pneumonia in the United States every year. There is no one medicine more efficient and potent in the treatment of these diseases than is acetyl-salicyl-phenetidin when used in ade PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. quate dosage. Dr. Henry Beates, for many years president of the Pennsylvania State medical examining board, states: In typhoid fever, as proven by cultures studied by competent observers, it rapidly diminishes the number of bacilli typhosi in the urine (50 per cent in 4 days) and frequently lessens the duration of the disease because of its antiseptic quality. By using the German quotation as his authority and reason, Lyman F. Kebler, in stating that the compound is inactive, admits that no medicine is safer to use in the treatment of these diseases. He has no justifiable reason for not knowing of its efficiency. He would not personally take an overdose of it to prove his contention. So, in playing the part of being the mentor as to just who shall manufacture medicines capable of saving human lives, this so-called "referee" may be responsible, in my opinion, for the sacrifice of many times more lives than went down with the Titanic. Application for space in the exhibit hall of the annual meetings of the American Medical Association is also denied, because the products submitted had not been acted upon by the council on pharmacy and chemistry. Finally, in June, 1907, the council on pharmacy presented the appearance of action by refusing to approve of the synthetic medicine, bismuth methylene disalicylic acid, assigning as an object that I had obtained a patent on another product, which, it stated, had been described in current literature in Germany. This was an admission that one of the functions of this council was the passing upon the validity of patents. To this objection we answered that the Government grant to us is prima facie valid by force of the statute, and that we did not think the council on pharmacy and chemistry was a tribunal in substitution for the courts to determine ex parte the validity of the patents. If such were the case, then why had the council on pharmacy and chemistry approved of aspirin or acetyl-salicylic acid that had been fully described in current literature as far back as 1869? The members of 'this council on pharmacy and chemistry knew of the nature of the defect in the claims in the patent rights of foreign-made product. It also knew that that product, outside of the commercial advantage, was in no sense superior in medicinal values to the salts of salicylic acid, described in the Pharmacopoeia, that were entirely free of proprietary rights. It also knew that there were no products described by the Pharmacopoeia that possessed the chemical nature and the medicinal qualifications of the American-made synthetic. It also knew that the compound possessed sufficient merits as to necessitate the manufacture of a specious technicality for the appearance of a defect. The rights of the sick to the use of the meritorious medicinal values of the new synthetic compound were trampled upon by the ruse of raising a cloud on the validity of letters patent issued by our Government on another different substance. It was a device that looked as if they would like to undermine the right of honorable compensation to the inventor of the acetyl compound of methylene disalicylic acid. When I went the Germans one better and chemically combined formaldehyde with acetic acid and salicylic acid and produced acetyl methylene disalicylic acid, I created the product that cures rheu PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. matism and gout in less time than by any other agent known to man. It is far safer and more efficient than the product controlled by that German corporation, especially in the presence of heart disease. But in doing so I have brought down upon myself and my cause the wrath of that $100,000,000 corporation and have been deprived of the vaunted rights of citizenship. To undermine confidence in the curative value of acetyl methylene disalicylic acid, that far surpasses in curative quality the Germanmade proprietary, approved of by the council on pharmacy and chemistry, the so-called "referee" to whom the council had referred it for investigation prepared a fake "report" that contained over 10,000 words with the difficult collaboration of elaborate tables. Months of time were consumed in its preparation, which involved the "reading" of much of the German literature and the manufactured evidence, so as to neatly place here and there some quotation to give it the appearance of reliability with which to impress the readers as to the care, thought, and accurateness involved in its preparation. This dishonest "report" the council on pharmacy and chemistry ordered to be printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This fake "report" bore the immaculate appearance of a dispassionate research contribution "from the pharmacological laboratory of the Western Reserve University" on the value of "Formaldehyde derivatives: Their fate and actions in the body, together with observations on some other urinary, intestinal, and wound antiseptics." Emanation from such a source carried with it the high prestige of correctness of that college. Bearing the approval for publication by the council on pharmacy and chemistry of the American Medical Association gave to the fake "report" the atmosphere of infallibility. Having the approval of the Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Agriculture and the chief of the drug laboratory caused the medical profession to accept it as authentic. The function of these apostles of virtue was supposed to be guarding the welfare of the sick and their time. was supposed to be donated to the service for the uplifting of the cause of pure food and clean thought. All of the foreign-made formaldehyde derivatives described in that fake "report" had already been approved of by that council on pharmacy and chemistry. All of the American-made formaldehyde derivatives mentioned in that "fake" report were first thought out by me and the process of manufacture published to the world. This fake "report" was the highest effectual advertisement of the foreignmade proprietary medicine brought out by that favored German corporation to compete with the chemical which I had created, and at the same time a severe denunciation of our product-which is so efficient that false witness must be manufactured to discredit it. The total amount of the medicines used for testing for the liberation of formaldehyde in watery solution would bulk about as much as a No. 8 grain of shot. The amount administered to observe their fate and actions in the human body, together with observations on their antiseptic influence on the urine, was less than one single dose, and that used but twice on two separate days. The American synthetic, bismuth oxyiodide methylene digallate, that is used by honest men in those diseased and accidental conditions exhibited PARAGRAPH 1-ACIDS. as diarrhoeas, ulcerations, contused wounds, burns, etc., at reputable medical colleges was measured by these male creatures on the basis of a urinary antiseptic. The synthetic acetyl-methylene disalicylic acid, that is so superior in the curing of gout and rheumatism to those approved of proprietaries made in Germany, was measured on the basis of a wound powder. The synthetic benzoyl methylene diguaiacol was denounced and rejected with the ruse "that it was most probably not absorbed" into the human organism, although no attempt was made to find out by administering it. The author of the "report" afterwards stated that he did not consider it incumbent on him to conduct lengthy researches to supply information which should have been furnished by the manufacturer, and that he therefore contented himself with stating that the latter had not made good his claims. But he failed to state where and when he had ever before stated it. Then why the existence of his "report"? The Journal of the American Medical Association and the council on pharmacy and chemistry had stated, and afterwards repeated the misstatement in the face of this admission that he had not, that he had proven it. On the subject of conducting "researches" and praising foreignmade patent medicines upon the "use" of a fraction of one solitary dose, and that use but three times on separated days, in whose behalf was he conducting them? He was supposed to be serving the cause of afflicted humanity. In whose behalf was the "research" conducted in praise of another foreign-made proprietary medicine and published on the previous month in the Journal of the American Medical Association? Was he working in behalf of the sick or working the sick? The author of that fake "report" also confessed, on the subject of the liberation of formaldehyde in passing through the human organism, that none of his evidence that had been published as proven in the Journal of the American Medical Association and approved of as proven facts by the council on pharmacy and chemistry was true, as shown by his admissions * * I took care to avoid any statement that the decomposition was disproved. * None of this amounts to a final proof that these products are not decomposed in the body; and I have with care avoided any statement to this effect. The fake "report" purported to be one founded on "Formaldehyde derivatives: Their fate and actions in the body." It contained no reference to personality, yet the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association and the chairman of the council on pharmacy and chemistry afterwards confessed that- Knowing what I know, I think Dr. Summers has been treated much more leniently than he ought to have been treated, but I do not care to give the reasons to you now. According to this evidence from the general manager of the American Medical Association the discrediting of nonsecret chemical compounds possessing unsurpassed curative properties in the saving of human lives, was upon the question of personality and not because of any therapeutic inefficiency of those medicines. Then why the Sollmann "report" and the misuse of such valuable space in the leading medical journal of the world? |