Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the WorldWooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
History
Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Wooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police -- Illinois -- Chicago
"As we have progressed the work has broadened and grown
to proportions never anticipated at the start. Among the
goods seized were found boxes, the labels of which bore the
chemical name and formula of trional, and which gave an
exact description of the chemical and physical properties
of trional and the medicinal indications of this drug.
"On examination it was found that these boxes contained
pure acetanilid. The dosage of drugs recommended upon the
label was fifteen to twenty grains, and it was stated 'that
night sweats of phthisis are promptly arrested by eight
grains."
"I am informed that it is within the professional knowledge
of every druggist as well as every physician that the
substitution, grain for grain, of acetanilid, for trional,
is a most reprehensible fraud, which might cause the death
of the patient to whom the drug was administered.
"As indicating the commercial fraud connected with this
substitution, it should be stated that the price charged
for this drug by the defendants in this case, as shown by
the price list, was 95 cents per ounce, commercial value of
acetanilid is one and one half cents per ounce.
"But by far the largest fraud found was in the counterfeit
label business. There were 2,400 metal caps for bottles
stamped with the name of a Swiss manufacturer. There were
also labels purporting to be German or Swiss labels. A
number of half filled bottles, waiting for the adulterants,
showed conclusively the use to which these labels were to
be put.
"We were fortunate enough to find certain cards and bills
in this place indicating that the makers of these metal
caps and labels had never been nearer Switzerland or
Germany than Clark and Harrison streets. Acting upon this
information we secured evidence that these articles were
made in Chicago and never imported.
"These entire preparations including the mixing, boxing,
labeling and placing upon the market was done by these
parties here in Chicago, and the goods, much of it
undoubtedly, placed in the hands of innocent purchasers,
who were deceived by the external appearance of
genuineness, into purchasing the adulterated and fraudulent
goods, without analysis or investigation of any kind.
"The great public, the individuals who use these drugs when
prescribed by their physician, are themselves in total
ignorance of the fact, not only that they have defrauded
and cheated, but perhaps placed in jeopardy of their lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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