patent medicine

A patent medicine (sometimes called a proprietary medicine) is a non-prescription medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name, and claimed to be effective against minor disorders and symptoms, as opposed to an prescription drug that could be obtained only through a pharmacist, usually with a doctor's prescription, and whose composition was openly disclosed. Many over-the-counter medicines were once ethical drugs obtainable only by prescription, and thus are not patent medicines. The ingredients of patent medicines are incompletely disclosed. Antiseptics, analgesics, some sedatives, laxatives, and antacids, cold and cough medicines, and various skin preparations are included in the group. The safety and effectiveness of patent medicines and their sale is controlled and regulated by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and corresponding authorities in other countries. The term is sometimes still used to describe quack remedies of unproven effectiveness and questionable safety sold especially by peddlers in past centuries, who often also called them elixirs, tonics, or liniments. Current examples of quack remedies are sometimes called nostrums or panaceas, but easier-to-understand terms like scam cure-all, or pseudoscience are more common.