506 
PREVENTION OF DISEASE 
the sale of patent medicines make those products a menace 
to the public health. This not altogether for what the 
remedies themselves contain, although in many instances 
that is distinctly bad, but because of the way such products 
are exploited. ... So to advertise as to make well men 
think they are sick and sick men think they are very sick, 
for the sole and only purpose of causing them to purchase 
drugs to pour down their throats, is more than an economic 
offense ; it is a crime against the public health. Yet this is 
the principle on which the average ‘ patent medicine ’ 
of to-day is sold.” 
Students of even such an elementary course of biology 
as this, possess the needed information to enable them to 
tell the difference between fakes and real remedies. This 
is one of the important results that you should obtain from 
this study. Learn to seek for the real cause of disease and 
be certain that the results which follow are due to the medi¬ 
cines taken before writing testimonials for fake cures. 
385. Alcohol in Patent Medicine. — Many patent 
medicines contain a considerable amount of. alcohol. Since 
the passage of the national Food and Drugs Act, which went 
into effect January, 1907, the presence and quantity of 
alcohol in “ patent medicines ” has to be declared on the 
label. This alone tended to reduce the amount of alcohol 
in many of them but there still remained a large number of 
preparations whose most active and powerful drug was 
alcohol. Some of these were so slightly medicated that the 
United States Government would not permit them to be 
sold except under a liquor license. Since the advent of 
prohibition, of course, these can be sold only under the 
strict regulations governing the prescribing of alcohol. 
Some patent preparations contain also cocaine or opium 
and should not be taken for this reason. 
386. Alcohol and Disease. — It is unnecessary to make an 
elaborate series of quotations from eminent men to prove 
