78 
Correspondence. 
jAm.  Jour.  Pharru. 
\  February,  1915. 
control.  He  bases  his  activities  in  these  matters  upon  the  findings 
and  opinions  of  the  Public  Health  Service. 
The  Friedmann  cure,  on  account  of  its  character,  came  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Therefore  the 
Public  Health  Service  investigated  and  disclosed  the  true  character 
and  effect  of  Friedmann's  agerit.  As  a  result,  it  cannot  be  sold  to  any 
appreciable  extent  in  this  country ;  the  charlatan  cannot  use  this  agent 
to  quicken  the  hopes  of  victims  of  the  white  plague,  extract  their  cash, 
and  finally  cast  them  into  blackest  despair,  more  complete  poverty, 
and  accentuated  wretchedness.  Pharmacists  are  delivered  from  a 
willing  or  unwilling  prostitution  of  their  profession  without  any  finan- 
cial loss,  eventually  a  financial  gain.  This  all  reminds  us  there  are 
many  nostrums,  of  virulence  and  ill-effect  greater  than  the  Fried- 
mann treatment,  foisted  upon  the  pharmaceutical  profession  and 
American  public,  to  the  detriment  of  both.  Nostrums  prosper  in 
their  nefarious  trade  because  Congress  has  not  provided  for  the 
proper  control  of  them. 
Each  new  spurious  cure  placed  upon  the  market  is  a  vampire  that 
degrades  and  reduces  the  financial  profits  of  the  pharmacists;  a  wolf 
that  gnaws  the  vitals,  mutilates  the  body,  or  destroys  the  minds  of 
those  who  take  it.  When  the  pharmaceutical  profession  in  America 
cooperate  in  an  intelligent  manner,  Congress  will  provide  for  the 
same  treatment  of  all  spurious  cures  as  that  administered  to  the 
Friedmann  agent. 
John  A.  Roddy. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
In  Aid  of  Belgian  Pharmacists.1 
Amsterdam,  November,  27,  1914. 
Various  Belgian  apothecaries  have  been  brought  into  great  diffi- 
culties on  account  of  the  war.  Attempts  have  been  made,  here  and 
in  foreign  countries,  to  provide  those  who  have  been  compelled  to 
flee  from  their  country  with  a  temporary  working  sphere.  With 
this,  however,  those  who  went  away  and  those  who  could  remain  in 
their  fatherland  are  not  helped  in  the  long  run. 
When  the  destroyed  house  must  now  be  again  built  up,  when  lost 
stock  must  be  replenished,  when  life  must  again  be  infused  into  a 
1  Translation  by  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller,  Corresponding  Secretary,  Philadelphia 
College  of  Pharmacy. 
