Ready-made Remedies

READY-MADE REMEDIES, pharmaceutical preparations manufactured in mass quantities in laboratories and factories and released for sale in a ready-to-use form, under a brief conventional name, in special factory packaging. Laboratories and factories usually use a more or less complex prescription formula developed by medical practice. Before the revolution, ready-made remedies were known by the name of patent medicines. This incorrect name is sometimes still used today. Ready-made remedies were widely distributed through advertising in the general or medical press. Often, the same remedy was released under different names to create the impression of something new, previously unknown. While praising the medical significance and therapeutic effect of the offered remedy, the manufacturer never indicated its exact composition. Names were given to preparations mostly based on the name of the disease against which the medicine was intended (e.g., Gonosan for gonorrhea, Antianemin for anemia, Asthmolysin for asthma, Cephal-dol for headache). The patient and the physician became accustomed to these brief names, and the physician prescribing the preparation often had no idea about its composition. In Russia, no fewer than 3,000 foreign and domestically produced ready-made remedies circulated on the market. Abroad, these remedies still circulate in sales by the tens of thousands. The unbridled spread of ready-made remedies in Russia was put to an end by the October Revolution. The entire vast mass of ready-made remedies was reviewed by the Pharmaceutical Department of the People's Commissariat of Health, which found it possible to allow no more than two dozen of the most valuable, tested preparations into circulation. In order not to allow low-value preparations onto the pharmaceutical market, a special registration procedure was developed (Circular of the People's Commissariat of Health No. 74, 1926). Ready-made remedies are allowed for mass distribution only if they represent a rational medicinal form tested in pharmaceutical laboratories and clinics. Ready-made remedies of the same composition, produced from the same raw materials and having the same therapeutic purpose, are registered under one and the same name, if possible a rational one (e.g., the remedy Gonosan is named "complex santal capsules," and Bom-Bengue is named "menthol-salicylic ointment"). The composition of ready-made remedies is reported in literature and on the packaging. Advertising of ready-made remedies in the general press or special publications intended for the general public, with an indication of medical significance and therapeutic effect, is not permitted. Clinical information and data on ready-made remedies may be placed only in medical and pharmaceutical publications. Ready-made remedies of foreign production are permitted for import into the USSR only if they are not manufactured here or are prepared in insufficient quantities. The current rules for the registration of ready-made remedies also apply to preparations of individual chemical composition released under conventional names, such as, for example, thiocol, salipyrin, electrargol, etc. (See Patent Medicines, Dosed Remedies.)