nd of skin-plaster made up into pills." The seeds of
fenugreek are used mainly for poultices. Doan's Dinner Pills contain two
drastic purgatives, podophyllin and aloin. Both of these are dangerous
drugs. Aloin frequently produces hemorrhoids (piles). The _British
Medical Journal_ says that the material in forty of the Kidney Pills and
four Dinner Pills would cost one English halfpenny (one cent).

Vitae-Ore is given as consisting of ordinary sulphate of iron (green
vitriol) to which a little Epsom salts has been added. Munyon's Kidney
Cure, which claims to cure Bright's disease, gravel, and all urinary
diseases, is given as composed entirely of sugar. Dr. Williams' Pink
Pills are said to be an iron pill much the same as the ordinary Blaud's
Pills which are sold in drug-stores for half, or less than half, the
price of the proprietary article. (Iron is said by recent investigators
to be very injurious to the stomach.)

The Committee on Pharmacy of the American Medical Association has
analyzed many proprietary medicines; from their reports the following
analyses are taken. "Health Grains," which are claimed to be a remedy
for "Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Nervousness, etc.," were found to consist
of 87.50 per cent. of coarse quartz sand, and 12.50 per cent. of rock
candy and syrup.

"Hoff's Consumption Cure consists essentially of sodium
cinnamate and extract of opium, a mixture at one time suggested
for the treatment of tuberculosis, but which has been discarded
by physicians. A medicine which depends on opium for whatever
therapeutic effect it may have is, when sold indiscriminately to
the laity, inherently vicious."

Sartoin Skin Food for "sunburn, and all skin blemishes" was made of
Epsom salts colored with a pink dye. The government prosecuted the
company sending out Epsom salts as a "food," and they were fined $20 for
thus seeking to dupe silly women.

Malt extracts are very extensively used at the present time, under the
popular notion that they are an aid to starch digestion. That they are a
product of the brewery has caused them to be looked upon with suspicion
by cautious people, but the multitude has apparently given no thought,
or care, as to whether or not they may be alcoholic. Dr. Charles
Harrington presented the results of an examination of these preparations
at a meeting of the Boston Society of Medical Sciences, held Nov. 17,
1896. The following is quoted from the journal of the so