for the persistence and the spread of the nostrum evil than any other single factor (or in fact than all other factors combined, with the above mentioned exception). The average druggist has finally become awakened to the danger of the nostrum evil, and to the impropriety, nay dishonesty, of pushing and recommending. potent remedies for serious diseases. And if we had to deal with the average druggist alone, the influences of the pharmaceutical press and of the pharmaceutical societies would be sufficient to induce him—the druggist-to have nothing to do with these nostrums, which may be characterized as distinctly fraudulent. But we can do nothing with those "big" drug stores (department stores would be a more correct appellation). They-The Hegemans, The Rikers, etc.—do not give a rap for pharmacy as a profession; they sneer at the word "professional"; they are in pharmacy exclusively for the money there is in it, and they will push, advertise and display any nostrum, no matter how vile and fraudulent, provided they are given a sufficiently high discount to make it "worth their while." And it is these big cut-rate corporation drug-stores with unlimited capital, (Hegeman's is backed by the Standard Oil Co., while the tobacco octopus is said to be behind Riker's) that hurt true professional pharmacy more than anything else does. And not only are they not professional themselves, but they prevent others from being so. For the smaller druggist, in order to exist at all, is, often against his will, obliged to follow in their footsteps, take in unprofessional side-lines, make objectionable window displays, etc. And many a professional pharmacist is pushed to the wall and put out of business altogether by the continuous growth and branching out of the unprofessional corporation drug stores. And while we are on the subject, we might mention the fact that these stores are the finest substitution schools in the country. Any clerk who has worked in one of these stores for some time can never after sell the thing asked for without a pang in his heart. You can never go into one of these corporation stores and ask for an article of a definite brand without being graciously informed, that "our preparation is much better" ("just as good" has gone out of style) or "our bottle is double the size."

The greatest menace to professional pharmacy to-day is the corporation drug-store.

NUMBER III-THE EFFECT OF THE GUARANTEE.

We now come to our third and last point. We stated in a former editorial in the CRITIC & GUIDE that the Pure Food and Drugs Act "guarantee" did an incalculable amount of harm, by making the people believe that the "guarantee" was given by the Government. It is altogether unfortunate that the word "guarantee" should have been used. Now, the very worst and lowest of nostrum manufacturers, can by complying with a few insignificant and altogether unessential rules, parade before a gullible

There

public the statement that his product is "guaranteed." could not be anything worse than Wm. Radam's Killer, it is fraudulent in its claims from beginning to end, and still it has in prominent letters the legend: "Guaranteed under the Food and Drugs Act, June 30th, 1906, No. 793." Of what benefit is a pure food and drug law when such nostrums can be sold freely and their manufacturers are permitted to lie to their heart's content? The "guarantee" is much more of an aid than an hindrance to the nostrum business.

I would summarize this article which has grown to a rather inordinate length, as follows:

I.

1. Wm. Radam's (Microbe) Killer is a wretched fraudulent nostrum, which, dead for some years, is now beginning to raise its head again. Those who have the public weal at heart should not permit it to be resuscitated. Perhaps this article will cause the second funeral of this nostrum, and let us hope that when it is buried now it will stay buried.

The big corporation drug-stores (Hegeman's, Riker's, etc.) are the greatest obstacles in the way of professional pharmacy and constitute the most powerful support of the nostrum evil.

3. The so-called pure food and drugs guarantee has proved more of a help than an hindrance to the nostrums, even of the lowest character. The word "guaranteed" should be eliminated altogether. Merely the serial number should appear.

The Bearing of the Sodium Benzoate Decision on the Work of the Council.

The unanimous conclusion reached by Prof. Remsen, Prof. Chittenden, Prof. Herter and Prof. Long as to the innocuousness of sodium benzoate, a conclusion which goes directly counter to the one reached by Dr. Wiley, is of such far-reaching importance, carries with it such a pregnant lesson, that it is well worth our while to stop and ponder and see just what it all means.

Dr. Wiley, chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, experimented with sodium benzoate on a squad of men (the socalled poison squad), and reached the conclusion that sodium benzoate, even in minute quantities, was injurious to health; that it caused loss of weight, gastro-intestinal disorders, nausea, vomiing, headache, renal irritation, etc. Profs. Remsen, Chittenden, Herter and Long-all of them, we will say parenthetically of much higher standing than Dr. Wiley, both as chemists and pharmacologists-working independently reached the unanimous conclusion, that Dr. Wiley is wrong in every one of his assertions. They also experimented with squads of men, they used benzoate in larger amounts, and they assert that it is not in any way injurious. And this is probably the truth. But had not a competent board of scientists reviewed Dr. Wiley's conclusion, a wrong

opinion would have gone down as a gospel truth, and it probably would have taken decades to dislodge it. For an humble individual to dare to disagree with Dr. Wiley's conclusions, before the Review Board showed their falseness, would have been to subject himself to the charge of ignorance or venality.

But it is not the sodium benzoate as such that interests us now. It is the bearing of this decision on other matters and the lesson it conveys. Its bearing on the work of the Council is particularly important.

We cannot help asking ourselves a number of questions: Is it not possible that many of the decisions of the Council have been just as wrong, as has been Dr. Wiley's in reference to the sodium benzoate? Is it not possible that many of the verdicts rendered by the chemists and the pharmacists of the Council would have been entirely reversed if they had been reviewed by a higher court of experts? Isn't it even possible that if certain preparations had been examined by several members of the Council independently, differing opinions would have been rendered? For it is curious to note, that Dr Wiley and Dr. Long--who reached diametrically opposite opinions in reference to sodium benzoate-are both members of the Council. The trouble has always been and I referred to this point a year ago—that a product would be given for examination to one member only (or to some assistant) and this one member's report would be taken and given to the world as the unanimous opinion and conclusion of the Council. This is wrong, very wrong. Wrong to the doctor, wrong to therapeutics, wrong to the manufacturer. For if there is one lesson the sodium benzoate decision teaches us it is the danger, the real and not hypothetical danger, of one-man power, of one-man opinions, of one-man verdicts.

And again we wonder, how many decisions of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry would be reversed, if reviewed by a higher and entirely independent court of experts.

Prostitution and Our Moral Sanitary Prophylactors.

We believe the societies for moral and sanitary prophylaxis should be encouraged. They can do no harm and they do do some good. But how very very little that good is! And why? Because even they cannot shake off our Anglo-Saxon prudery; they do not speak frankly, and they do not go to the root of the evil. For this reason we do not attend the meetings often. In the three or four years that we have been a member we have attended three meetings only-the last one took place on February 11th. The subject was "The Affluents of Prostitution." If one original or valuable idea was promulgated by any one of the speakers during that evening, it must have escaped us. And we usually listen with attention. There was the same beating about the bush, the same fear to call things by their right names, the

same unwillingness or inability to look at facts as they are, in short, the same insincerity and circumlocution that we meet so often in other societies, but which we thought would be noticeable by their absence in a society, whose object is the preventing of venereal disease, and the regulation of prostitution.

We got tired of the inanity of the discussion and then we got up and discoursed somewhat like this. We said: Prostitution has always existed and will continue to exist, until our economic system has undergone a complete and radical change. So long as girls have to fight with starvation or with beggarly wages and so long as men are unable to marry sufficiently early on account of their inability to support a family and so long as some married men will remain polygamous in their tastes, so long will prostitution exist. Attempts at repression of prostitution without changing our economic conditions will always result in a most dismal failure. But even should repression or the total suppression of prostitution be possible, it would be undesirable. For prostitution at the present time is a necessity. Call it an evil, but a necessary evil. It serves the purpose of a safety valve. Without it there would be much more secret domestic prostitution and cases of rape would increase a hundred or a thousand fold. No homes would be safe. Must I quote to you the oft quoted remark of Lecky regarding this subject? Well here it is:

"There has arisen in society a figure which is certainly the most mournful and in some respects the most awful, upon which the eye of the moralist can dwell. That unhappy being that is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex and doomed to wretchedness and an early death, appears in every age the perpetual symbol of the degradation and sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the efficient guardian of virtue. But for her the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few, who in the pride of their untempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and despair. On that one ignoble and degraded form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame. She remains, while civilizations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people." In poetic and somewhat high flown language Lecky tells you what I have just told you in plain prose. And yet, as Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton so well said, "these high priestesses of humanity, while their profession is considered a necessity, have no protection in church or state, under the canon or civil law. Tho the victims of men they are hounded like wild beasts from one shelter to another, dragged into the courts, robbed of their property, shunned by society at large and left then to perish on the highway." What would I say should be done with the fallen women? I would say: Leave them alone! Let them know that as long as they behave themselves they will not be insulted, bothered, dragged and driven. Let them know that as

long as they behave themselves, they have nothing to fear and they do not have to pay half or three-quarters of the blood-earned money to corrupt politicians or grafting police captains. And above all, let the parsons keep their hands off. They make a mess of it whenever they attempt to interfere. Our respected fellow-citizen, Rev. Parkhurst, has done more to scatter and to increase prostitution than a thousand cadets or white slave traffickers could ever have done. It is the driving of the prostitutes from pillar to post, from one street to another that is actually harmful-for wherever they move there is a new focus of prostitution to act as an example and as a temptation. And this brings me to the only sensible suggestion made here to-night. DeputyCommissioner Woods said, tho with much hesitation, that if we wish to minimize the bad effects of prostitution, we should segregate it. And we should assure the women that if they confine their activities within the indicated boundaries, if no complaints. reach the police about robberies or assault, they will not be molested. And with this suggestion of Mr. Woods I fully agree. The streets would be free; only a certain area would be infested, and men who would go there would go there deliberately. The poor innocent men would not have to fight temptation at every corner. As to the licensing of prostitution-houses and official medical inspection, that is too large a subject to go into tonight in detail, but the last word has not yet been spoken, and in general I am in favor of the system. Medical inspection may not be capable of preventing all venereal disease, but if it can prevent fifty or even twenty-five per cent., then its introduction is justifiable and highly desirable. And before I conclude, I would like to repeat and to emphasize one thing: Let our good parsons of all denominations keep off their hands of the social evil problem. It is one of our deepest medico-social problems and of such our dear brethren of the cloth understand nothing. Only physicians and sociologists can grapple with it."

That's what I said that evening. But I said it all inwardly. What was the use of shocking a lot of old maids of both sexes?

A Reverie à propos of Nothing.

The CRITIC & GUIDE has been called the enfant terrible of medical journalism. The Editor has been the despair of everybody. No organization, no clique, no society can call him their

So it has been charged. The editor accepts this charge as the highest compliment that could be paid to him. It shows better than anything else can that the adage, or what he prefers to regard as an admonition: amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, magis amica veritas, has been inbred in him and has taken such deep root, that no "practical" arguments, no far-seeing "wisdom" will ever be able to uproot it.