84 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 811 



from which we have quoted, and by the reso- 

 lutions adopted with practically no dissenting 

 vote, is one with which our college presidents, 

 and an persons interested in coUege education, 

 will do well to reckon promptly and seri- 

 ously. . . . 



Like all human institutions, the American 

 college is full of imperfections; like them all, 

 it has to undergo change with the passage of 

 time. But it should not bow humbly to 

 every passing wind of popular doctrine. It 

 has a history of which it has ample reason to 

 be proud; it has deserved well of the country, 

 and the work that it has been doing there is 

 still need for it to do. Agricultural schools, 

 industrial schools, technological schools, have 

 grown up alongside of it, and other kinds of 

 schools may be equally necessary, and may 

 meet the needs of a far greater number of 

 individuals. There is no compulsion on any 

 one to go to college, nor is it desirable that 

 every one should have a college education. 

 But out of the thousands who have had this 

 opportunity, a very large proportion have de- 

 rived from it something that they could not 

 otherwise have got, something that they have 

 prized as an invaluable possessif^n to them- 

 selves, and something that has supplied to the 

 country an element without which American 

 life would have been immeasurably poorer. 

 Nor do the confident but reckless assertions 

 of educational muckrakers furnish any reason 

 for believing that the day of its usefulness is 

 past, or for abandoning that spirit of loyalty 

 to the traditions of culture which, until very 

 recently, has been the general possession of 

 our college men. — New York Evening Post. 



• THE ORGANIZATION OF ILL-HEALTH 



There are a number of commercial interests 

 in this country that do not want an inde- 

 pendent national Department of Health. In 

 recent years we have had many exposures of 

 the patent medicine swindle. We have learned 

 that most of the most popular patent medi- 

 cines, the so-called tonics, were nothing more 

 than dilute alcohol with certain bitter drugs 

 so as to make them taste mediciny. Physi- 

 cians Lave seen alcohol habits formed as a 



consequence of freely imbibing these alcoholic 

 preparations. Some of them were meant par- 

 ticularly for women's diseases, and the conse- 

 quence has been a feminine nipping at alco- 

 holic products that has worked serious harm 

 to the women of the country. We have also 

 found that the headache powders so commonly 

 advertised were composed of drugs which, 

 when taken as freely as was advised on the 

 labels of many of these preparations, were 

 seriously dangerous. We have had not a few, 

 but many, deaths as a consequence of them. 

 The soothing syrups for children mostly con- 

 tained opium and were seriously injuring the 

 growing child at an important period of its 

 development, and adding to the number of 

 nervous wrecks with tendencies to drug addic- 

 tions in after life that we had in this "country. 

 For a time after these exposures the patent 

 medicine swindlers were very quiet. In many 

 cases their advertisements disappeared from 

 their usual places. Now they are gaining 

 courage again. The American people have 

 proverbially a very short memory for such 

 exposures. The patent medicine people dread 

 very much the organization of a national 

 Department of Health, because this will sadly 

 interfere with their now happy prospect of 

 reviving their business and fattening their 

 purses at the cost of the health of our people. 

 This is one element in the opposition organ- 

 ized for ill-health. 



There are others. There are a number of 

 people in this country who would like to be 

 freer to foist drugs, impure foods and ques- 

 tionable products of many kinds on our in- 

 habitants, so as to make money, cost what it 

 might in the health of those who consumed 

 them. The consumer's purse they are inter- 

 ested in, but not his health. The organiza- 

 tion of the national Bureau of Health, with its 

 strict enforcement of the Pure Food and 

 Drugs Act, and its sure tendency to further 

 protect by legislation the health of our people, 

 is a dread specter to such exploiters of the 

 public, and, of course, they want to lay it if 

 possible. 



The League for Medical Freedom has a 

 rallying cry. It is that the doctors are trying 



