ABSTRACT
Food and drug regulations evolved in the twentieth century, a re£ection of major changes in the way in which foods and drugs were processed and sold. In the nineteenth century, these products were processed on a small scale. Grain was milled locally, community butchers slaughtered animals and sold meat to neighbors, and local pharmacists and physicians formulated and dispensed medications. This changed late in the nineteenth century, notably in the food industry, as large mills and slaughterhouses became a part of the industrial revolution. But abuses, like the sale of adulterated foods in some instances, led to social revolt and the desire for governmental regulatory controls. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1906), a revealing look at practices in the meat industry, is thought to have stimulated the U.S. Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906. For drugs, this Act focused on the need to inform the public about foods and drugs through the use of honest labeling. A label reveals the contents of a container and cannot provide false or misleading information in a fraudulent manner. The 1906 Act did not, however, establish the need for review of each product by a federal agency before it could be marketed and sold to the public.
