ApriL 19, 1912] 
It should be recalled that the war with 
ignorance is nowadays not only with igno- 
rance of the ways of nature, but also with 
ignorance of the deceits and methods of 
wickedness of our fellowmen. As part of 
their equipment for the battle of life is it, 
then, anything more than common fairness 
to give to our college youth at least the 
bare facts in regard to typical ‘‘cough 
cures’’ (containing morphine, codeine, 
heroine, cannabis indica, chloroform, 
ether), ‘‘catarrh powders’’ (containing 
cocaine, ete.), asthma, headache, colic, 
tobacco and drug habit cures (the last 
themselves containing morphine) and 
medicated ‘‘soft-drinks’’ (containing caf- 
fein, extract of kola nut, ete.)? ‘“‘It may 
be of interest to note that life insurance 
companies are considering the status of 
soft-drink habitués as future risks.’’? 
When the particular drug alcohol is under 
discussion, we are reminded of the strongly 
partisan, unbalanced and therefore uncon- 
vineing oratory of a certain type of tem- 
perance lecturer. Upon this and several 
other subjects it were surely wiser to give 
the undergraduate the benefit of a scien- 
tific and dispassionate statement of the 
facts, removed from all suspicion of the 
distortions arisimg from controversy. The 
facts require no garnishing. 
It is a platitude that the fraudulent, 
worthless or harmful drugs, ‘‘remedies”’ 
and ‘‘treatments’’ are introduced to and 
used by a very wide public because of their 
very wide advertising in the newspapers. 
There are, indeed, a few newspapers which 
will not print such advertisements, but 
these are honorable exceptions to a general 
rule. The government and medical asso- 
ciation laboratories, whose analyses expose 
the nature of these drugs, do not similarly 
advertise their exposures in the public 
?Dr. Kebler, chief of the Division of Drugs, 
Bureau of Chemistry, U. 8S. Dept. of Agriculture. 
SCIENCE 
611 
press, nor do they by their own publica- 
tions reach a wide public. Under these 
circumstances has not the college, as a 
publie institution, a duty to fulfil in 
spreading the truth? For all our colleges 
must be regarded as public institutions— 
state-aided colleges and universities most 
obviously of all. Stating the case gen- 
erally, therefore, can we not fairly say that 
the colleges, in their relation to the state, 
are in duty bound, in partial return for 
public moneys expended upon them, to 
contribute, by educating their students in 
hygiene, towards that most important fac- 
tor of the public welfare, the public 
health ? 
Turn now to the question whether in- 
struction in general hygiene as a required 
course could be sound educationally with- 
out the postulation of half a dozen pre- 
requisite courses that could not be made 
required courses. The a priori answer to 
this question must be left to the experts. 
In our opinion, however, there are no diffi- 
culties here that are insurmountable. It 
may be recalled, in the first place, that, in 
some states, the public schools, with their 
“‘nhysiology’’ teaching, have already be- 
gun a type of instruction which it would 
be perfeetly good pedagogy to continue in 
college. That the school should be more 
progressive than the college seems, by the 
way, to be the normal condition of affairs. 
The general hygiene course need not neces- 
sarily be made a freshman course; thus, 
many students may come to this course 
with some previous training in contribu- 
ting sciences. Taking, therefore, what 
would appear to be the most unfavorable 
case, that, namely, of the student who has 
touched no science whatever, let us con- 
sider to what pedagogical catastrophe he 
will be subjected in studying general 
hygiene. It has been said above that the 
rapid modern growth of this science is 
