Page 12 - Pharmacy History 22 Mar 2004

Examples of various labels.
Fry the chemist, however, was more bold and openly challenged this curious legislation, for, although he agreed with the intent of the Act, he
considered ridiculous the concern being shown over wording on promotional material for medicinal products. To Madley he wrote:
I am liable to a penalty of £50 if I sell a box of Beecham’s Pills and I think the course I am taking is the best way to show it up and get it amended. Every newspaper agent who sells English papers is liable and all Chemists,
as nearly all the patent medicine wrappers contain words that according to this . . . Act makes them indecent.6
With such preoccupation with offensive advertisements, it was perhaps to be expected that when the Burra Record, in June 1898, published an advertisement for ‘Dr De Reiger’s Passion Pills’, a storm would erupt.
These pills were guaranteed to restore lost manhood by providing a ‘certain and permanent cure’ for: impotence, spermatorrhoea, night losses and nervous debility. Based in Sydney, the Parisian Drug Company was prepared to supply a hundred of these pills for one pound. Madley referred the case to the Attorney General who ruled that it contravened the Act because the words ‘lost manhood’ had an inference to sexual intercourse, as did ‘impotence’ which meant an ‘inability to beget’. Madley immediately ordered an information to be laid against
the printer or publisher of the Burra Record. This was done, although the charge was withdrawn following the editor’s promise not to republish the offending advertisement in future.7
References
(GRG – Government Record Group)
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid. See cover notes on file
4. Ibid. Post Master Generalto Minister of
Education and Agriculture, 16 April 1898. 5. GRG 5/2/1898/359, Priest to Hampton,
24 May 1898.
6. GRG 5/2/1898/360. Fry to Maderly,
6 April 1898.
7. GRG 5/2/1898/579.
Lewis George Madley was the South Australian Commissioner of Police from 1896 to 1909
This article is taken from “Colonial Blue:
A history of the South Australian Police Force – 1836-1916”, by Robert Clyne and published by Wakefield Press, West Kent Town,
South Australia.
Reproduced with permission from the publisher, Michael Bollen.
1.
GRG 5/2/1898/23, A.L. Frv, advertisement.
12 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 2 ■ no 23 ■ July 2004