He frightens you with alarming and untrue statements, gains
your confidence by a display of semi-true facts reinforced where weak by
false assertions, and, having benefited himself far more than you, leaves
you to do what you should have done at first, go to a doctor or a hospital.

Were it made compulsory for the recipe to be printed on all patent
medicines, people would lose their childlike faith in coloured water and
purges, and cease the foolish and dangerous practice of treating diseases
of which they know little with drugs of which they know less.

The British Medical Association of 429, Strand, London, W.C., issue two
1_s_. books--"Secret Remedies: What they cost and what they contain", "More
Secret Remedies"--giving the ingredients and cost price of most patent
medicines. You are strongly urged to send for these books, which should be
in every home.

_The basis of every cure for epilepsy_ (not obviously fraudulent) _is
bromides_. The usual method is to condemn vigorously the use of potassium
bromide, and substitute ammonium or sodium bromide for it. Some advertisers
condemn all the bromides, and prescribe a mixture of them; others condemn
potassium bromide, and shamelessly forward a pure solution of this same
salt in water as a "positive cure!"

In all cases the sale price is out of reasonable proportion to the cost,
victims paying outrageous sums for very cheap drugs.

Most epileptics are poor, because their infirmity debars them from
continuous or well-paid work, leaving them dependent on relatives, often in
poor circumstances also. The picture of patients, already lacking many real
necessities, still further denying themselves for weeks or months to
purchase a worthless powder, is truly a pitiful one.

Bromides are unsatisfactory drugs in the treatment of epilepsy, but they
are the best we have at present. Get them made up to the prescription of a
doctor, and see him every month to report progress and be examined. In the
end, this plan will be very much cheaper, and incomparably better, than
buying crude bromides from quacks.

* * * * *

There is no drug treatment for either hysteria or neurasthenia, and when
the doctor gives medicines for these complaints, it is to remedy organic
troubles, or, more often because necessity forces him to pander to the
irrational and pernicious habit into which the public have fallen of
expecting a bottle of medicine whenever they visit a