274 
Pood  and  Drug  Adulteration. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1909. 
that  they  are  not  at  all  suited  to  individual  cases.  This  is  par- 
ticularly true  of  many  so-called  cough  cures  and  consumption 
remedies  which  are  widely  advertised  and  sold,  and  often  used  in 
cases  of  incipient  tuberculosis.,  the  great  danger  of  these  prepara- 
tions lying  in  the  fact  that  many  of  them  allay  or  appear  to  cure 
the  symptoms  and  thus  lull  the  patient  into  a  false  sense  of 
security,  while  the  disease  is  meanwhile  obtaining  a  firm  foothold 
in  the  system,  the  patient  discovering  too  late  that  the  remedy 
which  seemed  to  cure  has  but  kept  him  from  consulting  proper 
professional  aid  and  from  obtaining  real  and  lasting  benefit. 
It  is  a  well-recognized  fact  that  the  solar  plexus  of  the  modern 
magazine  and  newspaper  is  located  in  its  advertising  columns,  and 
that  there  is  frequently  a  lack  of  harmony  and  close  agreement 
between  the  advertising  and  editorial  columns  of  the  same  publi- 
cation. The  reason  for  such  disagreement  is  not  always  due  to 
wilful  intention  to  deceive  or  mislead  the  public,  but  to  ignorance 
or  neglect  of  scientific  and  incontrovertible  facts.  No  publisher 
would  believe  or  permit  to  be  printed  in  a  reputable  newspaper, 
except  as  a  joke,  the  claims  of  an  advertiser  who  stated  that  he 
had  for  sale  a  line  of  suits  of  clothes,  all  of  the  same  pattern  and 
size,  yet  guaranteed  to  fit  any  purchaser  irrespective  of  his  style 
of  personal  architecture ;  and  yet  the  claims  of  the  nostrum  maker 
who  advertises  a  remedy  to  cure  some  specific  disease,  irrespective 
of  its  stage  of  development  or  personal  idiosyncrasy  of  the  patient 
toward  the  medicine,  is  just  as  mendacious,  and  still  our  papers 
teem  with  advertisements  which  would  serve  for  amusement  were 
the  matter  not  so  serious.  The  time  must  come  when  there  will 
be  control  or  censorship  of  all  advertisements  of  nostrums.  It 
would  be  very  much  more  creditable  to  the  journalistic  press  if 
this  step  were  taken  voluntarily,  as  has  already  been  done  to  a 
limited  extent  by  some  of  its  members.  Even  at  the  present, 
while  columns  of  news  space  are  generously  devoted  to  the  dis- 
semination of  information  relative  to  the  prevention  and  intelligent 
treatment  of  tuberculosis,  advertisements  are  appearing,  often  in 
adjacent  columns,  of  nostrums  guaranteeing  to  relieve,  and  in 
some  cases  to  cure,  consumption. 
I  would  be  derelict  in  my  duty  did  I  not  have  something  to 
say  about  the  labelling  of  both  food  and  drug  products  at  the 
present  time.  In  the  dark  ages,  when  the  alchemists  sought  in 
vain  for  the  philosopher's  stone  and  the  elixir  of  life,  and  by 
