Balm of Gilead

Last week the U. S. House of Representatives devoted an afternoon to discussing asthma, its cause and cure. Said Congressman Frederick Cleveland Smith of Ohio: "Mr. Chairman, at Mount Gilead, Ohio, is located a laboratory that puts out a certain medicine known as the Nathan Tucker Asthma Remedy. A Food and Drugs Act passed last year would compel firms of this sort to cease prescribing by making a diagnosis through the mails. . . . I have practiced medicine for a good many years and have myself prescribed this remedy many times. . . . I know physicians who use it themselves. Just before I left for Washington one of my colleagues told me he hoped they would not take this remedy away from the people. This colleague of mine has since died. He used this remedy himself [laughter]--not from the remedy."

Said Congressman Alonzo Dillard Folger of North Carolina:"Without this remedy . . . hundreds of thousands of people will suffer."

Said Congressman Wall Doxey of Mississippi: "I have told hundreds of people about this medicine. . . ."

This deluge of florid tributes to the late Dr. Tucker was brought forth by a bill introduced by Congressman Smith, which would allow the producers of the specific (now Dr. William B. Robinson and his son Dr. Gerard Briscoe Robinson, a graduate of Yale Medical School) to continue their business of diagnosing and prescribing asthma medicine through the mail. Under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, this practice is illegal. To comply with the Act, which goes into effect next June, Robinson patients will have to come to Mount Gilead for treatment.

From Mount Gilead each year, the Drs. Robinson ship thousands of gallons of medicine concocted from a secret formula which they purchased from respectable old Dr. Tucker before he died in 1920. The medicine, which contains small amounts of cocaine, is sold, complete with atomizer and carrying kit, for $12.50 to any asthma sufferer, sight unseen, who mails in a questionnaire.

The American Medical Association and anti-Tucker Congressmen (who last week defeated the bill) object to the Balm of Gilead. Asthma is a disease which may be due to any one of a score of causes. No one "specific" can relieve the disease, says A. M. A., and no "long-distance treatment" can diagnose conditions which require the personal attention of a physician.

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