296 HAMILTON P. DUFFIELD 



The use of preservatives has reasonable advocates 

 among physicians and chemists. Victor Vaughan advocates 

 the use of borax, in such quantities as specified by the Enghsh 

 commission: as the dusting of the surface of the hams and 

 bacon to be transported long distances with one and one half 

 per cent of the weight of the meat, with borax, or boric acid; 

 as meat thus dusted does not become slimy. Much of this can 

 be obliterated from solid food, by washing and soaking in clear 

 water, and gives the minimum of evil, when contrasted with 

 the danger of putrefaction. Where people are limited to long 

 distance supplies, preservatives are admissible, but in most 

 instances, they are inexcusable, and rest under the ban of 

 suspicion. The New Hampshire state board of health made a 

 crusade against the use of boric acid in tubs of oysters: its 

 liberal use enabled the dealer to keep these bivalves on his 

 counter, in warm weather, without ice. When the dealers 

 informed the wholesalers, that they were not allowed to sell 

 oysters so treated, the practice was abandoned, without any 

 of them going out of the oyster trade. 



Of all the fraudulent adulterations of drugs, the patent 

 medicine ranks first. Edward Bok did more for suffering 

 humanity through his expose of patent medicine frauds, in the 

 Ladies' Hopie Journal, than physicians can through medical 

 journals, for the people using the nostrums are reached by 

 Bok's journal. By giving the analyses of thirty six medicines, 

 showing their per cent of alcohol, he no doubt shocked 

 many good temperance women, addicted to their use. Har- 

 per's Weekly says : ''The patent medicine is strongly intrenched 

 in the affections of the newspaper." One paper owns to an 

 income of forty thousand dollars per annum from this source. 

 Many foreign countries control and regulate the sale of these 

 medicines. Germany has passed strict laws, but has not yet 

 entire control of the sale. Sweden controls by regulating the 

 number of druggists, as there are only three hundred and fifty 

 in the country. In Stockholm there is one druggist to fifteen 

 thousand people, so that there is no need for the patent side 

 in the apothecary shop. The law in Ohio fixes the standard 

 for most foods and medicines : the enforcement of the law, b}^ 

 convictions and fines of violators, has given adulterators of 



