462 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



times to direct and control the course of physical derangements than 

 even the wisest layman. 



Commercial principles are comprehensible by all; financial success 

 is obtrusively tangible. A firm earning enormous sums by the sale of 

 remedies is naturally supposed to be offering a valuable product. The 

 professional spirit, the ethical, the scientific principles on which action 

 must be based to be intelligently successful, are thus obscured. The 

 great proportion of people of this country estimate the scientific prac- 

 titioners of medicine, equipped as they are with years of patient 

 scientific self-sacrificing education, as of small account compared with 

 the material achievements of the great factors of nostrums and pro- 

 prietary medicines. The sphere of acquired wealth, in comparison with 

 this quiet faithful service, is obvious, speaks a comprehensible language. 



The members of our profession in the concrete have quietly sub- 

 mitted to a domination at the hands of these manufacturers which is 

 no less than contemptible. In matters of politics ' money talks/ The 

 great power of the country resides in the public press. With them 

 money also talks. Advertisements are paid for which alone aggregate 

 sums close to the total of the gross earnings of legitimate practitioners. 

 Hence naturally are induced alliances, defensive and offensive, whereby 

 the power of the great drug houses becomes increasingly intrenched for 

 good or evil. 



The members of a learned profession are thus made to appear of 

 little account. When they protest, as individuals, their voice is over- 

 borne by platoon fires of pseudo-scientific, advertising jargon till most 

 of us become dazed and all but ready to capitulate before we can place 

 our evidence on record, or even get a hearing. 



Incredible sums of money are spent by the great drug manufac- 

 turing houses to make and hold their power. They are almost im- 

 pregnable, but not quite. No physician in America earns such an 

 income as is enjoyed by many individual members of these firms who 

 live like royal princes, leaving at death fortunes which, when subdi- 

 vided, suffice for generations of affluence. Yet the cure of all this 

 peril is simple, but by no means easy of attainment. Physicians should 

 act in concert and consistently. They should acquaint themselves ac- 

 curately with the facts and educate the public to know where and 

 how drugs may be best used, and especially point out where they 

 should not. 



First let us, every one, learn and make clear to the public at all 

 times what are the effects of nostrums. Can they exercise any bene- 

 ficent purpose? Emphatically no. What good end can they serve? 

 It is difficult to see one. What possible advantage can accrue from 

 this obtrusion of drugs in attractive shapes upon the receptive con- 

 sciousness of the community? It may be claimed that every man has 



