[One hundred years after the Geminal law, Rene Cerbelaud publishes secret remedies]

Our colleague René Cerbelaud was an original character. He played an important part in the pharmaceutical history of the 20th century when published recipes of countless medicines and cosmetic products, incurring the hostility of their manufacturers. As a matter of fact, he contributed to the disappearance of secret remedies and therefore to the enforcement of the Germinal law more than a century after it was promulgated. In a sense he may be looked on as the inventor of generic drugs and the promoter of what has become "parapharmacie".