so become attracted by a formula which is more plausible than
sound. In the first place, we all know that extract of meat is
not food at all. From the manner of its production, it cannot
contain an appreciable quantity of proteid material. It consists
mainly of creatin, and creatinin, and salts. These are, it is
needless to say, incapable of acting as food. Extract of meat,
and similar preparations, have their uses however; made into
'beef-tea,' their meaty flavor often enables patients to take a
quantity of bread, which would otherwise be refused; or lentil
flour, or some other matter may be added. In this way, though
not food itself, it becomes a most useful aid to feeding. It is
besides, a harmless stimulant, especially when taken, as it
always should be, hot. It should be needless to add that to
combine extract of meat with port wine is simply to ignore its
real use. The only intelligible basis for such an invention must
be the wholly erroneous notion that extract of meat is a food."

The prices asked for "secret nostrums" are said by chemists to be
ofttimes far beyond the value of the materials. Of one article the _New
Idea_, a druggists' paper, says:--

"It retails at $1.50 per bottle. Such an article could be put up
for less than fifteen cents, including bottle, leaving by no
means a small margin for the profit of its manufacturers."

The same paper says of a cure for catarrh, neuralgia, etc. sold in the
form of a small ball:--

"This cure costs $2.50 per ball. A handsome profit could be made
upon it at 5 cents a ball."

Some proprietary preparations are not harmful, but are positively inert.
The Mass. State Board of Health in report of 1896 gives _Kaskine_ as an
example of these. Although sold at a dollar an ounce it was found to
consist of nothing but granulated sugar of the fine grade used in
homeopathic pharmacy, without any medication or flavoring whatever.

Dr. Edward Von Adelung in an article in _Life and Health_, Dec., 1897,
tells of a well advertised cure for consumption, the analysis of which
showed it to be composed of water, slightly colored by the addition of a
very small quantity of red wine, and two mineral acids, muriatic and
impure sulphuric, in quantities just sufficient to lend it a taste! He
says:--

"Fortuitously I had the opportunity of observing the influence
of this remedy on a consumptive