that none of them have yet been able to
detect its capacity to modify the body or any function of the body in
any degree at all whether in health or disease. This is only one of many
instances that might be named; every preparation of which the
composition is not stated is suspect. Men are paying for these things at
this moment under the impression that they are buying valuable tonics
which will save their wives from the consequences of the drink craving
and help to avert it. Large numbers of women are ruining themselves in
purse and in body quite secretly under cover of these scandalous abuses
which are allowed to go on from year to year, and which are undoubtedly
doing more injury to the feminine--that is to say, to the more
important--half of the community in each succeeding year. At least let
the facts be known. Let liberty be believed in and encouraged; but if
these things are to be made and sold and bought, let their composition
be stated on the bottles. The composition of milk is supervised by the
State; margarine, which is harmless and an excellent food, may not be
sold as butter; alcohol, which is noxious, may be sold under any lying
name, but so long as the State gets its percentage, it is well pleased.
The official organ of the medical profession in this country has done
well to draw renewed attention to this subject. Surely it ought to be
possible for the profession and the advocates of temperance to join
hands for the promotion of legislation in a direction where reform
cannot otherwise be obtained. Something, one hopes and believes, can be
done by merely writing on the subject. A certain number of women who
read this book will be deterred from buying these things on finding that
they are simply "masked alcohol" and that their medicinal virtues are
less than _nil_. But though all that is to the good, only legislation
can meet the real need. These preparations offer insidious means of
teaching women to drink, and when the habit is established, nothing can
be accomplished by revealing to the victim the history of its origin.
The minimum demand for legislation should be, at the very least, that
all preparations of this kind should have their composition stated with
every portion of them that is vended to the public. Assuredly the
champions of womanhood will have to take this matter up soon, and the
sooner the better. There is no need to be a fanatic, there is no need
even to be a teetotaler, in order to satisfy