ABSTRACT
The complexities of the relationship between fringe and orthodox medicine in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are more apparent than in the history of proprietary remedies, as they were known in France. Some acquaintance with the eighteenth-century debates on secret remedies is essential for understanding the positions that health reformers took in 1789. Ss the Revolution turned more radical, restrictions on the development and distribution of secret remedies seemed inconsistent with the basic principles of intellectual and economic freedom. The Germinal law, which followed a few weeks after law regulating medical practice, primarily concerned the education and licensure of pharmacists and the repression of illegal practice of pharmacy. In October, the commission was organised, and a set of instructions prepared for owners of secret remedies who had to comply with the new law. The commission duly began its work, headed by the distinguished anatomist Francois Chaussier, professor at the Paris faculty and an authority on medical jurisprudence.
