001 
Original Communications. 
bound to throw open his discoveries for the good of his fel- 
low men. 
The fourth and last case of quackery which I shall men- 
tion, is where a medicine is boastfully presented to the public 
as a cure for various diseases, and its composition and prepa- 
ration are at the same time kept secret. Medicines which are 
thus kept secret are denominated Nostrums. In this case, as 
in the others, empiricism is evinced by presenting a substance 
as an invariable cure, and by appealing to the public at large, 
as if they were judges on medical subjects. But there is su- 
peradded to this, the crafty device of enveloping the medicine 
with mystery. This mystery gives currency to the nostrum, 
and creates, in many, a blind faith in its powers; and, as a 
consequence, the proprietor reaps a proportionably large har- 
vest of money and public contempt. He declines making 
his secret public, from the sordid motive that by so doing he 
will lessen his profits. But why will publicity lessen his pro- 
fits 1 Will it be because, by revealing his secret, every one 
may make his medicine, and enter into competition with him? 
By no means ; it will be for quite a different reason — it will 
be because his medicine, stripped of the mantle of mys- 
tery in which it is wrapped, and exposed in its native insig- 
nificance, will cease to be used at all! 
Such, gentlemen, is a brief analysis of that disgusting 
compound called empiricism. I have exhibited to you its 
several component parts, which, I admit, are not all equally 
disreputable and censurable. Some of them, indeed, are ex- 
cused or justified on the various pleas of the usages of trade, and 
of the right of the people to have themselves deceived, if it is 
their sovereign will and pleasure. It is to guard you against 
these plausible arguments that I have thought it proper to 
speak of empiricism ; for I am sensible that it could not be 
necessary to caution you against those gross arts of decep- 
tion which characterize the worst ingredients of quackery. 
It must be admitted that the young apothecary, just en- 
tering upon the practical exercise of his profession, is beset 
by several perplexing difficulties, between the claims of his 
business as a means of support, and his views of moral right, 
