in infancy only to bear the most pernicious fruit in adult life.
It is said that one of the best known soothing syrups contains
from one to three grains of morphia to the ounce of syrup. I
believe that stringent legal measures should immediately be
taken to stop the sale of so-called soothing syrups containing
opium, morphia or codeine."

The writer has known mothers so ignorant of the nature of these soothing
syrups as to deliberately put the baby to sleep upon them in order to
insure relief from care for some hours.

Prof. J. Redding, M. D., says on this point:--

"While it may be true that an adult, of his own free will, and
without incentive, or predisposing causes, does occasionally
become a drunkard, I am convinced that nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of every one thousand individuals who become
drunkards are made so in embryo, infancy, or childhood, by the
use of alcoholic decoctions, soothing syrups, opiates, calomel,
etc. which are given as medicines to allay pain, obtund nerve
sensibility, to cure the little sufferer of his _vital
manifestations_, of his _mental discomforts_, but leave the
actual disease and its, perhaps, putrid causation to time and
debilitated vitality to remove."

Of the danger and harmfulness of patent cough mixtures _The American
Therapist_ says:--

"Cough mixtures as a rule, do more harm than good. Nine times
out of ten the principal ingredient is opium. It is true that
opium may lessen the tendency to cough, but it does great damage
by arresting the normal secretions, and the system becomes
affected by the poisons from the kidneys, skin, stomach,
intestines and the mucous membrane lining the upper air
passages. Not only do these mixtures arrest every secretion in
the body, but they also show their deteriorating and degrading
effect through the stomach. They contain substances which tend
to disorder and derange digestion."

Several years ago the Post-Office Department at Washington was led to
take an interest in the question of fraudulent "patent" medicines, and
an examination of many of these nostrums was undertaken by government
chemists. Fraud orders were issued against some of the most flagrant
offenders, forbidding them the use of the mails. This has not done away
with the evil, however, for they usually move to another city, and begin
business again under another name.