phia editor naturally welcomed the
help of the weekly, and Adams began his wonderfully effective campaign.

The weekly and the monthly now pounded away together; other periodicals
and newspapers, seeing success ahead, and desiring to be part of it and
share the glory, came into the conflict, and it was not long before so
strong a public sentiment had been created as to bring about the passage
of the United States Food and Drug Act, and the patent-medicine business
of the United States had received a blow from which it has never
recovered. To-day the pages of every newspaper and periodical of
recognized standing are closed to the advertisements of patent
medicines; the Drug Act regulates the ingredients, and post office
officials scan the literature sent through the United States mails.

There are distinct indications that the time has come once more to scan
the patent-medicine horizon carefully, but the conditions existing in
1920 are radically different from those prevailing in 1904.

One day when Bok was at luncheon with Doctor Lyman Abbott, the latter
expressed the wish that Bok would take up the subject of venereal
disease as he had the patent-medicine question.

"Not our question," answered Bok.

"It is most decidedly your question," was the reply.

Bok cherished the highest regard for Doctor Abbott's opinion and
judgment, and this positive declaration amazed him.

"Read up on the subject," counselled Doctor Abbott, "and you will find
that the evil has its direct roots in the home with the parents. You
will agree with me before you go very far that it is your question."

Bok began to read on the unsavory subject. It was exceedingly unpleasant
reading, but for two years Bok persisted, only to find that Doctor
Abbott was right. The root of the evil lay in the reticence of parents
with children as to the mystery of life; boys and girls were going out
into the world blind-folded as to any knowledge of their physical
selves; "the bloom must not be rubbed off the peach," was the belief of
thousands of parents, and the results were appalling. Bok pursued his
investigations from books direct into the "Homes of Refuge," "Doors of
Hope," and similar institutions, and unearthed a condition, the direct
results of the false modesty of parents, that was almost unbelievable.

Bok had now all his facts, but realized that for his magazine, of all
magazines, to take up this subject would be like a bolt from the blue in
tens