We submit, that had the department of the government entrusted with the enforcement of the federal Food and Drugs Act been consulted as to the claims of this patent, it would probably have advised that, if the absurd and palpably fraudulent claims set forth in this application for a patent were made on the label of a preparation of creatinin offered for sale in interstate commerce or in the District of Columbia, the vendor would be prosecuted. In 1914 there was issued U. S. Patent No. 1,086,339. Here the “inventor” declared: “It is the object of my invention to destroy parasitic micro-organisms, particularly on living tissue without injuring the latter, by progressively evolving sodium hydroxid contiguous to said tissue, from and in a moist mixture of calcium hydroxid, sodium carbonate, aluminum sulfate and boric acid....” In a word, this patent apparently was granted for the production of sodium hydroxid by a chemical reaction which had been in use for several centuries. Because the patentee had twisted the granting of this patent into a quasi-endorsement of his nostrum, the Council’s consideration of this preparation was sent the Patent Office as a protest against the present law which authorizes the granting of patents on unproved and improbable medical claims. At that time the Council was informed by the Patent Office that reforms in the issuance of patents for medicinal substances had been instituted, and that “the trouble will not be so pronounced in the future as it has been in the past.” FLAVORING EPSOM SALT A “DISCOVERY” There was issued early in 1917 U. S. Patent No. 1,212,888 for a method of flavoring Epsom salt--yet this “discovery” is a procedure which has been practiced ever since the cathartic action of this bitter salt has been known. Not only does the patent describe a process long known to physicians and pharmacists, but it sets forth claims that the flavored cathartic salt produced by the process cures flatulency, indigestion, sick and sour stomach, colic and destroys worms. In commenting on this patent The Journal of the American Medical Association (June 23, 1917, p. 1914) was constrained to remark: “The splendid conception of the framers of our constitution in providing a plan for promoting progress in science and useful arts by granting to inventors for a limited time the exclusive use of their inventions, in exchange for the publication of full knowledge thereof, is being debased. No branch of our government is of greater importance to the progress of the country than the patent office, provided that office is intelligently administered. When the patent office is used, however, for an extension of the nostrum business, founded on the abuse of patent and trade-mark laws, it becomes a menace to the public health. The objects of the patent law are being defeated by the practices of the patent office.”