Patent medicine

Enkephalins and Endorphins. Morphine (142), an alkaloid found in opium, was first isolated in the early nineteenth century and widely used in patent medicines of that eta. It is pharmacologically potent and includes analgesic and mood altering effects. Endogenous opiates, the enkephalins, endorphins, and dynotphins were identified in the mid-1970s (3,51) (see Opioids, endogenous). Enkephalins and endorphins ate Hsted in Table 9. 

U.S. Laws and Regulations Related to Drug Product Development and Manufacture. Until early in the twentieth century, dmg products were made and sold in the United States having virtually no imposed control. QuaUty was generally poor. Many products were patent medicines of dubious value. Some were harmful and addicting. 

Geheimmittel, n. secret remedy, patent medicine, nostrum. 

A. Hechtlinger. The Great Patent Medicine Era. Galahad Books, New York, 1970. 

Patent medicine industry, 78 683 Patent office gazettes, printed, 78 210-211 Patent portfolio auditing, 78 185 compiling, 78 157 Patent protection, foreign, 78 191 Patent research, in fine chemical research and development, 77 425-426 Patents, 5 766 78 157-197. See also Foreign patents Invention Patentability Trade secrets article of manufacture category in, 78 166... 

Cocaine wos written in the US shortly after the passing of Ihe Harrison Act, a piece of legislation banning the non-prescript ion sales of cocaine and other drugs. This prohibition was the result of the tremendous a mount of drug debilitation and Addiction caused by the rash of potent patent medicines which swept the country around (he tern of the century. 

NCAHF position paper on over-the-counter herbal remedies. National Council Against Health Fraud Web Site, Peabody, MA, 1995, Available at www.ncahf.org/pp/herbal.html Ko, R.J., Adulterants in Asian patent medicines, N. Engl.. Med., 339, 847,1998. 

Au, A.M. et al.. Screening methods for drugs and heavy metals in Chinese patent medicines. 

Zhang, H., and Cheng, Y. (2006). Solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometric analysis of saponins in Chinese patent medicine of formulated Salvia miltiorrhizae and Panax notoginseng. J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal. 40,429 32. 

The benefits of the DSHEA to the manufacturers of natural products is obvious. They can claim a variety of health benefits for their products in very general terms that may sound to consumers like health claims but usually are not. They also can (although they are unlikely to attempt to) sell products that do not contain the chemicals listed on the label, are not safe for human consumption, or are not effective at treating the conditions for which they are recommended. In some ways, this situation sounds similar to the conditions that existed at the beginning of the 20th century, when the FDA was created to deal with the false and misleading claims of patent medicine suppliers. 

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. 

A landmark in the control of drugs was the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Food abuses, however, were the primary target. Less than one quarter of the hrst thousand decisions dealt with drugs, and of these, the majority were concerned with patent medicines. 

Prescription drugs also were subject to control under the 1906 law. In fact, until 1953 there was no fixed legal boundary between prescription and nonprescription medications. Prescription medications received a lower priority, since food and patent medicine abuses were judged to be the more urgent problems. 

Chinese immigrants were often blamed for bringing opium to America, but opium had been present in America for some time, both in its raw form and in countless medical concoctions created by patent medicine makers, the unlicensed pharmacists of the day. Nevertheless, the wave of Chinese immigrants, who had used opium in China or picked up the habit in America, enhanced the demand for opium and thus expanded the market. 

In the 1800s, there were no large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturers, no carefully tested safe and effective medicines, and no regulatory body (such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) to make sure that medicines were safe to use and actually worked. Instead, there were the patent medicine makers, which were unregulated small-time drug manufacturers. The profession of patent medicine making, often referred to as... 

Many of these nostrums were advertised to cure a myriad of diseases, but probably failed to cure any. However, they certainly created countless alcoholics and morphine addicts. By the early 1900s, concern regarding patent medicines was on the rise and the medical profession soon formally discredited their production. These measures unfortunately came too late to curb the infiltration of opium into American society. 

Su W, Feng Y, Wu Z, Zhang R, Ye W, Peng D. Study on quality evaluation of Chinese traditional patent medicine with chemical pattern recognition. Zhong... 

Young J. The Toadstool Millionaires A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation. Princeton Press, 1961. 

Despite little evidence that the patent medicines worked, the advertising increased sales. 

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