ventured to ask, "Would not whisky have a
narcotic rather than a tonic effect?" He replied thoughtfully, "Well,
tell the truth, I suppose it would."

CHAPTER XIII.

ALCOHOLIC PROPRIETARY OR 'PATENT' MEDICINES.

America has been called the Paradise of Quacks, and with good reason.
For years patent medicine manufacturers had such complete control of the
American press, both secular and religious, that it was almost
impossible to reach the public with information as to the real nature of
these concoctions. Consequently the people accepted with amazing
credulity the startling claims to miraculous cures of various pills and
potions as set forth under glaring headlines in the daily papers. The
publicity of the last few years has hurt the traffic seriously, but it
still has a great hold upon the ignorant and credulous part of the
population, and there is still a very large number of these preparations
upon the market. Many persons think that the Pure Food Law guarantees
every drug preparation now sold to be perfectly safe for use. This is a
great error. The guarantee means simply that the manufacturer guarantees
that his preparation is as he states upon the label; the government
guarantees nothing concerning the matter. That the guarantee of the
manufacturer is not always truthful has been shown by analyses of some
preparations made by state and national chemists. All the advantage that
the public has through the Pure Food Law, so far as drug preparations
are concerned, is that the percentage of alcohol must be printed upon
the label, and the presence of certain dangerous drugs, such as
morphine, cocaine, and acetanilid must be indicated. Thus persons
intelligent as to the nature of these drugs will avoid medicines which
the label says contains them. The ignorant are not protected. It was
difficult to secure even this small restriction upon the sale of
proprietary medicines because of the opposition of a large number of
newspaper publishers who were sharing the ill-gotten gains of the
medical fakirs.

A careful compilation of manufacturers' announcements list 1,806
so-called patent medicines sold in open markets, in which alcohol, opium
or other toxic drugs form constituent parts. 675 of the preparations are
known as "bitters," stomachics, or cordials, and alcohol enters into
their composition in quantities varying from fifteen to fifty per cent.;
390 are recommended for coughs and colds, nearly all of which contai