elieving suffering than in
making money. To those who have no money they give their services in the
name of the Great Healer of all ills. They have no private remedies.
Their knowledge is freely given to the scientific world that all men may
be benefited by it, contenting themselves with the enjoyments of the fame
of their discoveries.

The quack, however, is a different being. In some cases he has medical
knowledge, in the majority of instances he is an ignoramus. His sole
object is to make money, and he sells remedies which he knows to be
worthless, and even vends drugs which he is sure will do positive harm in
the majority of cases.

The best plan is never to answer a medical advertisement. There are
regular physicians enough in the land, and if one is influenced by
motives of economy, he is pursuing a mistaken course in dealing with the
advertising quack doctors of New York. If there is real trouble, so much
the greater is the need of the advice of an educated and conscientious
physician. If concealment is desired, the patient is safe in the
confidential relations which every honest physician observes towards
those under his care. A man is simply a fool to swallow drugs or
compounds of whose nature he is ignorant, or to subject himself to
treatment at the hands of one who has no personal knowledge of his case.

The same credulity which makes the fortunes of quack doctors, enriches
the vendors of "Patent Medicines." The majority of the "specifics,"
"panaceas," etc., advertised in the newspapers are humbugs. They are
generally made of drugs which can do no good, even if they do no harm.
Some are made of dangerous chemical substances, and nearly all contain
articles which the majority of people are apt to abuse. The remedies
advertised as cures for "private diseases" generally do nothing but keep
the complaint at a fixed stage, and give it an opportunity to become
chronic. The "Elixirs of Life," "Life Rejuvenators," "Vital Fluids," and
other compounds sold to "revive worn out constitutions" are either
dangerous poisons or worthless draughts. A prominent dealer in drugs
once said to the writer that the progress of a certain "Bitters" could be
traced across the continent, from Chicago to California "by the graves it
had made." Bitters, "medicinal wines" and such liquors have no virtues
worth speaking of. They either ruin the tone of the stomach, or produce
habits of intemperance.

The "washes," "lotion