Castoria & Friends

Castoria, Listerine, Sal-Hepatica and four out of five of all the best-publicized drugs in the U. S. medicine cabinet last week congregated in Manhattan for an evangelical meeting of the Proprietary Association. This organization, headed for 22 years by Castoria's Frank Anthony Blair, is spokesman, defender and apologist for an industry which annually makes and sells $300,000,000 worth of medicines, antiseptics, and hygienic supplies.

Criticized by the American Medical Association, badgered by the Federal Food & Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, heckled by Consumers' Research, rebuffed by self-respecting magazines and newspapers when the extravagant claims of occasional products verged on quackery, members of the Proprietary Association two years ago organ-ized an "advisory committee on advertising" to censor the commercial announcements of all its members. Hired as censor-in-chief was Edward H. Gardner, onetime professor of Advertising & Marketing at University of Wisconsin, more recently a pundit for J. Walter Thompson Co. During the year, Censor Gardner reported, drug manufacturers submitted $70,000,000 worth of advertising copy for approval. The advertised products ranged from Absorbine Jr. to Zymole Trokeys. A number of newspapers and magazines and the Mutual and Yankee radio networks, boasted the drug business censor, agreed to disseminate no advertising which he did not approve. Blacklisted with no appeal are drugs which claim to treat Bright's disease, tuberculosis, cancer, infantile paralysis, heart disease.

By such means members of the Proprietary Association expect to show clean and cheery faces to members of Congress who may impose new Federal regulations on an industry which is just learning to regulate itself. Advised Bayer's Aspirin's William E. Weiss: "Gentlemen, be on the alert for discriminatory legislation."

In a rare mood of humility, Castoria's Blair, an amiable whirlwind who habitually uses three telephones at once, referred his colleagues to the recent rash of books debunking the proprietary medicine industry, admitted: "We realize that to sell goods, advertising must have a punch. But we must fight to maintain our high standards, in an effort to eliminate the unscrupulous manufacturer. The packaged medicines industry has fought its way through gradual and quickening changes until it is outstanding for its exact standards, its scientific controls and its modern methods of packaging and distribution. In spite of their unfair premise, I believe that the muckraking books have had value at least to the extent of keeping us aware of our responsibilities. Complacency is sweet, but it is an enemy of progress and may lead to stagnation."

Feen-A-Mint's William H. Berg was especially wrought up over "street hawkers and pitchmen who peddle drugs from suitcases and wagons. They do $15,000,000 business a year. They slander our advertised products. They slander the American Medical Association. They should be stopped." Recently stopped by court order was Philadelphia Nuva-Dex Co., generally rated the biggest supplier of psyllium seeds, liniments and cure-alls of this irregular commerce.

Alka-Seltzer's A. H. Beardsley worried about cut-rate drugstores, said he circumvented them by selling his medicine only on consignment for sale at his own price.

Less docile under criticism than the businessmen of the drug business were the scientists responsible for the purity and usefulness of commercialized drugs. Among those who resented criticism of their products was Dr. George Fults Reddish. Grandson, son and brother of physicians, Dr. Reddish studied chemistry and bacteriology, got a job with U. S. Food & Drug Administration, eventually was attracted to Lambert Pharmacal Co., which makes Listerine and put halitosis into the U. S. language. In fighting mood because of the American Medical Association's dislike of commercial antiseptics, Listerine's Reddish told the Proprietary Association last week:

"The A. M. A. states that these antiseptics are of no value and yet one of the greatest surgeons that ever lived laid the cornerstone of modern medicine with an antiseptic solution having the same germicidal strength as the antiseptics so rashly criticized. Lord Lister was able to prevent infections with a solution of carbolic acid. . . . This doesn't make sense, and yet this is the sort of statement which is being copied in critical books and other publica-tions throughout the country. Can it be that at this late day it is found that antiseptic surgery is a failure, that Lister was wrong?"

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