NORTH CAROLINA

MEDICAL JOURNAL.

THOMAS F. WOOD, M. D.,

THO, GALLETT THOMAS, M. D..} Editors.

Number 5.

Wilmington, May, 1891. Vol. 27.

SELECTED PAPERS.

AMERICAN INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN MEDICINE, SURGERY AND PRACTICAL SANITATION.

By DR. JOHN S. BILLINGS, United States Army.

In connection with this celebration of a century's work of the American Patent System, I have been requested by the Advisory Committee to prepare a brief paper upon inventions and discoveries in medicine, surgery and practical sanitation, with special reference to the progress that has been made in this country in these branches of science and art.

It would be impossible to present on this occasion such a summary as would be of any special interest or use, of the progress that has been made in medicine and sanitation during the century, either by the world at large or by American physicians and sanitarians in particular; and I shall therefore confine my remarks mainly to the progress which has been made in these branches in connection

with mechanical inventions and new chemical combinations, devised by American inventors-which will require much less time.

The application of the patent system to medicine in this country has had its advantages for certain people, has given employment to a considerable amount of capital in production (and to a much larger amount in advertising), has contributed materially to the revenues of the government, and has made a great deal of work for the medical profession.

So far as I know but one complete system of medicine has been patented in this country, and that was the steam, Cayenne pepper and lobelia system-commonly known as Thomsonianism-to which a patent was granted in 1836. The right to practise this system, with a book describing the methods, was sold by the patentee for twenty dollars, and perhaps some of you may have some reminiscences of it connected with your boyish days. I am certain I shall never forget the effects of "Composition Powder," or of "Number Six," which was essentially a concentrated tincture of Cayenne pepper, and one dose of which was enough to make a boy willing to go to school for a month.

From a report made by the Commissioner of Patents in 1849, it appears that eighty-six patents for medicines had been granted up to that date; but the specifications of most of those issued before 1836 had been lost by fire. The greater number of patents for medicines were issued between 1850 and 1860. The total number of patents granted for medicines during the last decade (18801890) is 540.

This, however, applies only to "patent medicines," properly so-called, the claims for which are, for the most part, presented by simple-minded men who know very little of the ways of the world. A patent requires a full and unreserved disclosure of the recipe, and the mode of compounding the same, for the public benefit when the term of the patent shall have expired; and the Commissioner of Patents may, if he chooses, require the applicant to furnish specimens of the composition and of its ingredients, sufficient in quantity for the purpose of experiment. The law, however, does not require the applicant to furnish patients to be experimented on, and this may be the reason why the commissioner has never demanded samples of the ingredients. By far the greater number of the owners of panaceas and nostrums are too shrewd to

thus publish their secrets, for they can attain their purpose much better under the law for registering trade-marks and labels, designs for bottles and packages, and copy-rights of printed matter, which are less costly, and do not reveal the arcanum.

These proprietary medicines constitute the great bulk of what the public call "patent medicines."

The trade is patent and secret remedies has been, and still is, an important one. We are a bitters- and pill-taking; in the fried pork and saleratus-biscuit regions the demand for such medicines is unfailing, but everywhere they are found. I suppose the chief consumption of them is by women and children—with a fair allowance of clergymen, if we may judge from the printed testimonials. I sampled a good many of them myself when a boy. Of course, these remarks do not apply to bitters. One of the latest patents is for a device to wash pills rapidly down the throat.

According to the census of 1880 there were in the United States 592 establishments devoted to the manufacture of drugs and chemicals, the capital invested being $28,598,458, and the annual value of the product $38,173,658, while there were 563 establishments devoted to the manufacture of patent medicines and compounds, the capital invested being $10,620,880, and the annual value of the product $14,682,494.

A patent automatic doctor, on the principle of "put a quarter in the slot and take out the pill which suits your case," has been proposed, but this patent is said to be of Dutch and not of American origin. The idea of this may have come from Japan, for an old medicine case from that country, which I possess, has four compartments filled with pills, and the label says that those in the first compartment are good for all diseases of the head, those in the second for all diseases of the body, those in the third for all diseases of the limbs, and those in the fourth are a sure vermifuge.

From the commercial and industrial point of view, the great importance of patent and proprietary medicines is connected with advertising. The problem is to induce people to pay twenty-five cents for the liver-encouraging, silent-perambulating family pills, which cost three cents. Some day I hope that the modern professional expert in advertising will favor us with his views as to the nature and character of those people who were induced to buy Jones's liver pills or Slow's specific by means of the huge display

of these names on the sides and roofs of barns and outbuildings, which display forms such a prominent feature in many of our American landscapes, as seen by the traveller on the railway. I suppose there must be such people, for I have a high estimate of the business shrewdness of the men who pay for these abominations. I should also like to know how much a farmer gets for allowing his buildings to be thus defaced. He must be hard up; indeed such a display indicates that the place is mortgaged and that the poor man is heavily in debt.

Even the soap advertisers are not as guilty as the nostrum. makers, in this particular style of nuisance, although they far exceed the latter in viciousness when it comes to applying art to ignoble purposes. The connection between progress in medicine and soap advertisements may not be clear to you, but it exists nevertheless, for many of these soaps make work for the doctors by producing skin troubles.

Upon the whole I should think that the number of people who would take some trouble to avoid purchasing an article which is thus advertised must be rapidly increasing, so that such displays will soon be no longer profitable. The great importance of advertising does not relate to the placard or chromo business, but to its relations to periodical literature-to the daily and weekly press, and the monthly magazines and journals.

To the establishment and support of some of our newspapers and journals, medical as well as others, these proprietary and secret medicines, cosmetics, food-preparations, etc., have no doubt contributed largely.

I am sorry to say that I have been unable to obtain definite information as to the direct benefits which inventions of this kind have conferred on the public in the way of cure of disease or preventing death. Among the questions which were not put in the schedules of the last census were the following, namely: Did you ever take any patent or proprietary medicine? If so, what and how much, and what was the result? Some very remarkable statistics would no doubt have been obtained had this inquiry been made. I can only say that I know of but four secret remedies which have been really valuable additions to the resources of practical medicine, and the composition of all these is now known. These four are all powerful and dangerous, and should only be used