BOOK REVIEWS 435 owing to the double column printing and the rather small typeface used for drug titles). 2. Toxic effects are still described in generalities one might have hoped to see actual data for animal toxicity. 3. There are still a host of clinical references which cannot possibly remain up-to- date for long and one wonders if they serve any useful purpose at all. 4. There is still a list of "counter" remedy formulas, despite the fact that Stamp Duty was abolished over 25 years ago and label declarations have been mandatory ever since. There is undoubtedly a continuing place for "Martindale", since none of the official pharmacopoeial works can hope to cover the whole field adequately nowadays I am not entirely convinced that the editing policy for the new edition is wholly right but experience in using it will allow a more balanced judgement of this in the course of time. N.J. VAN ABB• THE DRUGS YOU TAKE. s. Bradsha•v. Pp. 224. (1966). Hutchinson, London. 30s. This is a chatty, informal yet informative - and frequently forthright - account of the ingredients of currently available patent medicines, assessing their imputed efficacy, indicating where appropriate the hazards of self-medication and yet scrupul- ously avoiding identifying any particular proprietary brand. Attention in book and article, both popular and professional, has often been given to the so-called "ethical" drugs but a much greater proportion of the population take patent medicines in some form or other and no recent assessment has been made. This book is explicitly aimed at the layman and could be regarded as an essay in health education. In this reviewer's opinion it should be prescribed as compulsory reading for every non- medical person: perhaps the National Health Service should supply a soft-cover edition to every household. Dr. Bradshaw - who has experience of military and civil general practice, as a medical adviser in the pharmaceutical industry and latterly a consultant to various food and pharmaceutical manufacturers - begins with a somewhat novelesque treatment of the broad spectrum of proprietary medicine manufacturers. He rightly emphasises the professional advice that a retail pharmacist may give regarding both the presence of generic substance in proprietaries, and the availability of non-branded equivalents. He is not concerned - other than incidentally - with the ingredients of drugs obtained upon medical prescription, but rather with the abundanee of patent medicines that the public-at-large apply to their bodies or pour down their expectant throats. He stresses how remarkable a drug is aspirin: the relief of inflammation, fever and many kinds of minor pains - and yet not euphoric and therefore not liable to addic- tion. Relatively few people are allergic to it or may suffer nausea, and the more widespread risk of slight stomach wall bleeding (whatever the formulation of the aspirin) can usually be avoided by suspending it in a beverage. The author would encourage self medication only within strict limits and then coupled with sound advice on treatment by activity. He explodes a number of therapeutic myths, e.g. the efficacy of bismuth antacids, or phenol down household drains and comments on the

436 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS foolish inclusion of ingredients, such as pancreatin (which will be metabolised in the stomach) in antacids. Two chapters exhaustively examine the need for a variety of lubricants and laxatives, mild and drastic regarding the malfunction of the lower bowel, he demol- ishes many long-cherished lay beliefs - the results of which in some instances have literally been absorbed with mother's milk! On the subject of ineffective "cold-cures", he notes that the infected sleeper awakes with a dry crusted nose and yet within 10 minutes of rising has cascading nostrils: perhaps if science knew the reason an effective cold cure might be found at last? Apropos of the virtuous feeling of restricting infection by enduring the cold in bed, he produces the delightful metaphor "gilding the lily of repose with the lacquer of virtue" but overlooking thereby the original reference to "painting the lily". He regards as inconclusive the small amount of evidence that massive doses of vitamin C may have curative or prophylactic effect on the infection. In contrast to their literally vital importance in medically prescribed quantities, he stresses the risk of hypervitaminosis from overzealous unsupervised taking of the other vitamins, whether by fallacious association with vitality, alleged curative functions or an excess in infant diet additives. In this and many other contexts he hammers home the hazard of false causal relationships, wherein the correct proprietary treatment of symptoms of one condition may be useless or even harmful for apparently similar symptoms of a different disease. In passing one notes that it is chemically incorrect (although no doubt clinically desirable) to write baldly (p.121) that "nico- tinic acid has nothing whatever to do with nicotine". There is an expos6 of extravagant claims, e.g. those for tonics and tonic wines, and the use, abuse and plain misconcep- tions of the taking of alcohol and tobacco are considered and contrasted with the stimulant effect of tea and coffee. In assessing the beneficial use of patent medicines as a whole, there is a confusing use of the terms "guilty" and "not guilty" the definition on p.156 is presumably back-to-front. Reviewing the speiific groups of patent medicines that he has examined Dr. Bradshaw classifies them as 'dangerous', 'harmless' or 'mildly useful'. In a further series of chapters he then considers the reasons for the "old fashioned stupid look to many patent medicines" (sic). In part he blames the ambivalent attitude of medical practitioners, who may object to lay diagnosis of mild symptoms, yet would be incapable of dealing with the vast volume of trivial short-term physical and nervous disorders. The legacy from half a century ago, when the doctor's nostrums competed with those of the local patent medicine manufacturer and with old wives' remedies, has no relevance today. Dr. Bradshaw concludes that the medical profession has a double responsibility - "to educate and guide the general public" and "to advise and push the manufacturers". He considers that the admittedly overworked Dunlop Committee on the Safety of Drugs should take a retrospective look at existing patent medicines and perhaps ensure that advertisements correspond with the submitted claims but this would surely need a significant enlargement of the, at present, very much hard pressed secretariat. Other potentially controllable aspects that Dr. Bradshaw touches upon include manufacturing conditions, quality control, the mystique of labelling in pharmaceutical Latin, the restriction of the sale of medicines to pharmacies and, very topically, the dichotomy between a pharmacist's professional and commercial activity. He also objects to expression of composition by percentage but one would expect the non-mathematical layman to be just as confused by an absolute weight in strange units per arbitrary dose, quite apart from the question of which ingredients are "active". Astringent attention is given to the astronomic sums