It would seem time for the law to intervene to stop this noxious traffic. Owing to recent agitation in certain magazines some effort has been made to restrict it, but it has met with vigorous opposition from a venal lobby. Those interested in the business argue that this is a free country and that each one must be allowed to use his own judgment as to what is harmful or beneficial. Such sophistry would be laughable if it were not used with such deplorable results. In almost every state of the union the practise of medicine is rigidly controlled. The applicant must show not only proof of medical education, but must pass an examination given by the state, before he is licensed to practise. As sensible an argument would it be to say that every one has a right to practise medicine and that each one must use his common sense in choosing a doctor who is educated. In many states of the union there are laws regulating the adulteration of foods. In but one or two states are there laws preventing the sale of deadly poisons in the form of patent medicines.

Government is for the purpose of protecting society from the depredation of persons whose moral intuitions are below the average of the people in general. We hang murderers in order that they may find no further victims; we lock up thieves that our property may remain safe; we allow patent-medicine monsters to murder and to steal without restraint. The proprietors of these nostrums are to be classed as moral perverts, for while they may deceive the public with various statements concerning the value of their remedies, they themselves are in no wise deceived. Being so, it becomes the duty of our legislative bodies to protect the community. The general public does not and can not be expected to separate the truth from the falsehood about the value of unknown drugs. When the poor, uneducated, epileptic whose mind has been enfeebled by disease, reads in a respectable paper an advertisement backed with some testimonial, he can not know that the testimonial is false and that the claims are absolutely impossible, but readily becomes the dupe of the charlatan, throwing away both money and life in search of the 'Will-o'-the-wisp.'