(SMtorial department 
It was our intention to have noticed the report of Dr. T. 0. Edwards 
upon Patent Medicines, in the last number, but as circumstances 
placed it out of our power to do so, we now refer to it as a document 
of too much interest and importance to be allowed to slumber among 
the things that have been. The Report was presented to Congress on 
the 6th of February, 1849, and originated in a resolution " ordering an 
inquiry into the expediency of so amending the patent laws as to pre- 
vent the patenting of compound medicines." It commences with the 
statement "that for many years a vast system of medical empiricism, 
sustained by popular credulity and the sanction of government, has 
prevailed in this country to the serious detriment of the public health 
and morals and it then goes on to point out the iniquity which, with 
an implied sanction of law, is perpetrated through this system. From 
the perusal of the report, the conviction to every one of common sense 
must proceed that every species of quackery is an imposition upon 
the public, but more especially that species which is sustained by 
enactments, which through its means have been prostituted to pur- 
poses never intended originally. The compounding of drugs can not 
be regarded as an invention ; in accordance with science it is done 
with advantage, but the principles upon which such compounding 
rests are as well known and diffused as science itself, and no exclu- 
sive right can be set up to some lucky hit in combination, as usually 
stated in advertisements. It does, in fact, appear as if the genius of 
ignorance presided over these pretended revelations from the priests 
of Esculapius. Let us present a few samples, selected for their brevity 
from among the list of patents accompanying the report: 
Anti-Bilious Pills. — " The following are the ingredients thereof, 
viz. : Pulv. gum scammony, one hundred and forty-four grains ; aloes, 
one hundred and forty-four grains; rad. rhei, one hundred and forty- 
four grains; sap. venet., twenty grains; carb. soda, twenty grains; ol. 
caryophil, sixteen guttis; tr. aloes sufficient to form a mass, to be di- 
vided into one hundred and forty-four pills." 
Medicine for Cure of Flesh Wounds. — 11 A vegetable extract, for 
speedily healing flesh wounds in the flesh of man or animals : also, 
scalds, burns, sore nipples, &c. The extract is obtained by distilling 
the bark, twigs, leaves and berries of the common witch hazel in the 
