Kataplasma kaolini, U.S.P., 1900.

  • Herzfeld, Alfred Abraham.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Kataplasma kaolini, U.S.P., 1900. 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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    KATAPLASMA KAOLINI, U. S. P., 1900 To the Editor:—Many things are revived, which already have passed in oblivion, and many things fall, which are now held in honor (Horace).1 Dr. Herman Schelenz of Cassel, Germany,2 has shown positively that earth „and clay pastes and poultices have been used intermittently from the very earliest period in the history of medicine. The recent intro- duction into our pharmaceutical armamentarium of the earth poultices and clay pastes should not be regarded, therefore, in any way as a novelty. In the course of the past few years, such preparations have been exploited broadcast and with vigor, and many medical journals are filled with almost frantic attempts to convince the profession that these remedies are sine qua non in a host of diseases of amazing .variety, special preference, however, being shown for diseases- ending in ‘ itis.” That the labors of these exploits were not wasted soon became evident. Physi- cians began to prescribe these preparations to an extent far beyond the dreams of their “originator;” indeed, the de- mand became so great that the committee for the revision of tne Pharmacopeia of 1900, in its paternal effort to rescue the general practitioner from the “patent-medicine” prescribing habit, inserted an official preparation, which the physician could prescribe “ethically.” Then a peculiar thing happened: instead of prescribing the official preparation, the physician continued to prescribe the proprietary, and if the pharmacist attempted to serve the official preparation in such circum- stances the physician promptly cried “substitution,” much to the pharmacist’s discomfort. A natural consequence was that the official preparation was neglected, and now to all intents and purposes has ceased to exist. Instead of accom- plishing their much-desired and worthy end, this committee therefore merely afforded additional advertising ammunition to the exploiters of these nostrums, who now boast that the U. S. Pharmacopeia—which incidentally Dr. Schelenz calls “an aristocrat among all the pharmacopeias”—advises the use of their preparations in the treatment of diseases, and that all these pastes are regarded as sufficiently worthy to be classed with such well-recognized and time-honored remedies as opium, quinin, arsenic, iron and mercury. 1. Multa renascentur, quae iam cecidere, cadentque, quae nunc sunt in honore. 2. Die Geschichte der Pharmacie, Julius Springer, Berlin.