More Secret Remedies

The stimulus to drug regulation ultimately came following the publications of two BMA papers entitled Secret Remedies in 1909 and More Secret Remedies in 1912. These prompted a Parliamentary Select Committee on Patent Medicines to be set up. This Select Committee reported in 1914, but the outbreak of war resulted in the shelving of all proposed legislation. 

Anon. More Secret Remedies. What they cost and what they contain. British Medical Association, London 1912 185-209. 

This study had very little impact on generating public or political concern to set up a regulatory authority. However, the appearance of two publications by the BMA concerning certain proprietary medicines, entitled Secret Remedies (1909) and More Secret Remedies (1912), caused a Parliamentary Select Committee on Patent Medicines to be set up. This Select Committee reported in 1914, but World War I intervened and all the proposed legislation was shelved. It is worth listing several of the recommendations of this Committee, some of which had to wait until the Medicines Act (1968) controlled and kept standards under review, and many of these became internationally recognized. 

If we consider Mercury, they that work in the Mines in Spain, teach us hy their Theft, that more than a pound of it may he taken inwards without harm for, a little before they give over working, they swallow a good quantity of it, which, when they are at liberty, they ease themselves of by Stool, and so keep it to sell in secret. And this the Overseers having discovered, do now force every Workman to stay there a considerable time, after his giving over working, that these Mercurial Thieves may be so forced to leave their theft behind them. But, if by the virtue of Chymical Dissolvants, you open the body of Quick-silver, it will produce in very small Doses, such various and wonderful Effects, that out of it alone, may be had Remedies to answer all the Indications of Physick. 

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