imported, American businessmen filled English bottles with almost
anything that seemed a suitable imitation ... it was all a packaged fantasy,
and the package was the vital part.”^7 With the creation of the new science
of chemistry came the Promethean ability to create additives and
preservatives, with the power to dilute, or confuse. Rotten milk, decaying
meat, and decomposing vegetables could all be disguised with the newly
discovered chemicals.
After jousting with Congress and battling with the meatpacking,
livestock, and “pharmacologic” industries, the 1906 Pure Food and Drug
Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on June 30, 1906. Not only
was inspection of meat the law of the land, but regulation of the drug trade
had metamorphosed with the stroke of a pen. The new law created the
nation’s first regulatory agency, with safety of food and drugs being
paramount, but also emphasizing the battle against fraud. The new bill
outlawed misrepresentation, demanding accurate labeling and prohibiting
adulteration of ingredients. It would be wrong only to credit the 1906 Pure
Food and Drug Act with reformation of the meatpacking industry and the
diminution of “snake oil” patent medicines. More importantly, it was a
change in policy that there was a role for government to protect its citizens
from unchecked commerce. However, in a more meaningful sense, the
solution came about “not only because greed and abuse forced action, but
also because there was a new hope created by the advances in science.”^8 It
was precisely because there were, for the first time, real medicines that
could heal patients that fake potions were worth destroying. Paraphrasing
Irving Fisher, Phillip Hilts concludes, “The world was gradually
awakening to the fact of its own improvability.”^9
The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act was signed into law by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, largely in response to the 1937 S.E.
Massengill company’s distribution of its lethally tainted sulfanilamide.
The crisis had highlighted the flaws (and weaknesses) of the 1906 Pure
Food and Drug Act. America was at a crossroads, just emerging from the
Great Depression and awakening to the idea that specific drugs could be
crafted to treat particular diseases. Chemistry was real, and the molecular
basis of disease, springing from the German idea of the cellular basis of
disease, meant that cellular dysfunction must be understood (and treated)
based upon the molecules in, and administered to, our bodies. As the glow
of enlightenment flickered on, how could swindling patent medicine