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friends, and watched with anxiety the professional attention of the 

 physician; and we have staked our confidence and our all on the 

 curative agents administered. Alternate hope and fear animate and 

 depress. The agents given are prescribed in official doses ; but, 

 alas! they are spurious, misnamed, adulterated; and pressing the 

 subject no further, we leave the imagination to complete the picture. 



No one is exempt from attacks of disease. Soon or late all man- 

 kind need the aid of medicine. Oh! who has not thought, when 

 pressed by the hand of affliction, and groaning under the many ills 

 that flesh is heir to, of the happy home, the heritage of our first 

 parents. One act of disobedience brought death and all its concom- 

 itant evils. We have seen it in the battle front; we hear its wail 

 when famine and woe are near; it commenced its persecutions at our 

 birth, and will only end them at our death. The All-wise Being has 

 not left us without a solace. The bruised and perturbed spirit, the 

 healing balm of a revealed religion blesses and restores ; for the sick 

 and afflicted, a no less bountiful provision is made. Every kingdom 

 in nature opes its bosom and stretches forth its hands to tender its 

 benefits; every plant and flower, every hill-top, every valley, the 

 mountain and the sea, all afford him curative agencies, challenge his 

 interests, and awake his gratitude. 



Surely, these blessings should not be frustrated; these gifts of 

 kindness and comfort should not by man's invention and cupidity be 

 perverted from their primitive design. The knowledge expended in 

 adulterating medicine can find no apologist. Connected with it, are 

 degradation and infamy, at which we well might startle. What 

 opinions would we entertain of the cutler, who would prepare his 

 instruments, either to break in the surgeon's hands, or with a refine- 

 ment of cruelty, so construct the knife as that its edge would turn 

 on its first use. Destitution and want may drive a man to seize upon 

 that which is his neighbour's, and we might in pity overlook the 

 crime, or cover it with the mantle of charity; but the cool -blooded, 

 deliberate, studied, and fatal deception practised in articles designed 

 for the relief of suffering and disease, can admit of no palliation — 

 can find no excuse. 



