Robert Clark Essay

659 Words3 Pages

Pure Food and Drug Act: Robert Clark In 1879 Robert Clark started working in a factory. He started as a 17 year old boy who made products in the factory but as his years there added up I became higher in rank. First, Robert was just one of the many guys making about 1.50 per day. He worked for six days in the week and ten hours every day. Then he became a salesman for the factory. Now he sell items that are made in the factory. Robert lived in downtown Chicago with his wife Helen, his son Frank, and his daughter Ruth. Robert has been working in the factory for quite a few years and he is really good at what he does. At the factory young boys and older men made medicines that were said to treat certain illnesses and diseases. When the medicines …show more content…

The Pure Food and Drug Act is a law that says anything including alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin etc. must have a clear label with quantity or percentage Without Sinclair’s book people may not have thought anything of it. When people became aware of what was happening the act was easily passed. Robert couldn’t sell medicines without labels, which was life changing for the Clark family. He couldn’t lie about the medicines or make them sound good with any magical products in them, so they didn’t sell. But instead of complaining and wondering what to do Robert thought about how he could find real cures for diseases, and that is exactly what he wanted to do. Robert got up to a 10th grade education, which was more than what a lot of people had in 1906. He was very smart he just has never had to use it before. In 1918 when the Spanish flu broke out Robert’s family was one of the very few that was not affected. Robert did all he could with other medical researchers like Joseph Goldberger to find a vaccine. But they soon found out that the flu was not from a bacteria, it happened because of a virus. They were sure they had a vaccine that would work but it was for a bacteria and not a virus. Eventually in December of 1920 Robert didn’t have to worry anymore because the pandemic came to an