Page 11 - Pharmacy History 22 Mar 2004

Mr Plod and the blue pill
after Robert Clyne
Not only was it the duty of police to prevent and detect crime, but, near the turn of the century, they assumed a new role as well – that of defending public morals.
Legislation passed in 1897, outlawing indecent advertisements, called on police to investigate
complaints and prosecute offenders.
Bordertown (South Australia)
chemist Archibald Fry was the first
to feel the brunt of these new laws when, in January 1898, he advertised ‘Lemaire’s French Soluable Pessaries’ in a pamphlet mailed through the post to prospective customers.
The contraceptive tablets, customers were informed, were ‘unlike injurious rubber goods’ and were for:
delicate females and to those who through ill-health or other causes cannot safely bear children, these Pessaries are a perfect, convenient and safe protection against conception and pregnancy, and the only reliable article that can be used without the husband’s knowledge.1
Told that ‘prevention is better than cure’, the pills could be obtained from Fry at 3/6d a box, post free anywhere in Australia. The Bordertown chemist did not stop there. He also advertised his own brand of ‘Iron and Pennyroyal Female Pills’, which never failed to cure: headache, backache, whites, eruptions, sallowness, lassitude, languor, painful menstruation, stoppages and all other kindred affections’.2
Following complaints that Fry had breached the Indecent Advertisement Suppression Act, Madley sought
a crown-law opinion. His advice
was to prove the chemist was the actual distributor of the infringing material, before a prosecution could be launched.3 A detective was sent from Adelaide to wait inside the
post office and when Fry next mailed correspondence, seize the articles for inspection. The local policeman would stand guard outside to corroborate.
The Postmaster General in Adelaide was most unhappy with mail being tampered with, which, if detained,
The Thin Blue Line c. 1899.
opened and found to be innocent, was contrary to the Post Office Act, as well as his own oath of office.
He felt these enquiries would lead to ‘serious trouble’ and was all the more apprehensive as many of the country postmasters were either illiterate or not well educated.4 If they could not properly justify their actions, they faced prosecution themselves and three years’ imprisonment.
The manager of The Advertiser,
who also fell foul of these laws, was interviewed by Detective Edward Priest in March 1898, following the appearance of an advertisement for ‘Dr Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People’.
Of concern was the claim that these pills could cure ‘female irregularities’. But, as the manager professed that he had no idea how the offensive words had ‘crept in’ and would suppress any further objectionable material, the matter was not pursued.5
volume 2 ■ no 23 ■ July 2004
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 11