FACTS ABOUT NOSTRUMS 535 



inquiry as to your present state of health, and whether you still occasionally 

 make use of Peruna. We also want to make quite sure that we have your 

 present street address correctly, and that you are making favorable answers 

 to such letters of inquiry which your testimonial may occasion. Remember 

 that we allow twenty-five cents for each letter of inquiry. You have only to 

 send the letter you receive, together with a copy of your reply to same, and 

 we will forward you twenty-five cents for each pair of letters. We hope you 

 are still a friend of Peruna, and that our continued use of your testimonial 

 will be agreeable to you. We are inclosing stamped envelope for reply. 



Very sincerely yours, 



The Peruna Drug Manufacturing Co., 



Per Carr. 



It would seem time for the law to intervene to stop this noxious 

 traffic. Owing to recent agitation in certain magazines some effort has 

 been made to restrict it, but it has met with vigorous opposition from a 

 venal lobby. Those interested in the business argue that this is a free 

 country and that each one must be allowed to use his own judgment as 

 to what is harmful or beneficial. Such sophistry would be laughable 

 if it were not used with such deplorable results. In almost every state 

 of the union the practise of medicine is rigidly controlled. The appli- 

 cant must show not only proof of medical education, but must pass an 

 examination given by the state, before he is licensed to practise. As 

 sensible an argument would it be to say that every one has a right to 

 practise medicine and that each one must use his common sense in 

 choosing a doctor who is educated. In many states of the union there 

 are laws regulating the adulteration of foods. In but one or two states 

 are there laws preventing the sale of deadly poisons in the form of 

 patent medicines. 



Government is for the purpose of protecting society from the 

 depredation of persons whose moral intuitions are below the average 

 of the people in general. We hang murderers in order that they may 

 find no further victims; we lock up thieves that our property may re- 

 main safe; we allow patent -medicine monsters to murder and to steal 

 without restraint. The proprietors of these nostrums are to be classed 

 as moral perverts, for while they may deceive the public with various 

 statements concerning the value of their remedies, they themselves are 

 in no wise deceived. Being so, it becomes the duty of our legislative 

 bodies to protect the community. The general public does not and 

 can not be expected to separate the truth from the falsehood about the 

 value of unknown drugs. When the poor, uneducated, epileptic whose 

 mind has been enfeebled by disease, reads in a respectable paper an 

 advertisement backed with some testimonial, he can not know that the 

 testimonial is false and that the claims are absolutely impossible, but 

 readily becomes the dupe of the charlatan, throwing away both money 

 and life in search of the ' Will-o'-the-wisp.' 



