ntinued use, or because of an idiosyncrasy on the part of the
taker, but it is their abuse more than their use which has brought
upon them such almost universal condemnation. Therefore, while the
physician may advocate their use, do not take them without his advice
and specific directions as to kind and dosage.

=Claiming Exhilaration.=--These medicines, by their insidious
character, constitute a particularly dangerous variety. They depend,
for their effect, upon the amount of alcohol that they contain. Many
conscientious temperance workers have not only unsuspectingly taken
them, but have actually indorsed them. Recently the published analyses
of several State Boards of Health and the investigations made by
Samuel Hopkins Adams, and published in his series on "The Great
American Fraud" have shown that a majority of the "tonics,"
"vitalizers," and "reconstructors" depend for their exhilarating
effect upon the fact that they contain from seventeen to fifty per
cent of alcohol; while beer contains only five per cent, claret eight
per cent, and champagne nine per cent. Pure whisky contains only fifty
per cent of alcohol, yet few people would drink "three wineglassfuls
in forty-five minutes"[14] as a medicine pure and simple. The United
States Government has prohibited the sale of one of these medicines to
the Indians, simply on account of the fact that as an intoxicant it
was found too tempting and effective.[15]

If one must have a stimulant it is better to be assured of its purity.
These medicines are not only costly, but contain cheap, and often
adulterated, spirits.

Their worst feature is that they often induce the alcoholic habit in
otherwise upright people. Commencing with a small dose, the amount is
gradually increased until the user becomes a slave to drink. Could the
true history of these widely used medicines be written, it would
undoubtedly show that many drunkards were started on their downward
career by medicinal doses of these "tonics" and "bracers."

=Claiming Pain-relieving or Soothing Qualities.=--The properties of
this class of remedies depend generally upon the presence of cocaine,
opium, or some equally subtle and allied substance. It should be
needless to state that such powerful drugs should be taken only upon a
physician's prescription. Habit-forming and insidious in character,
they are an actual menace. When present in cough syrups, they give by
their soothing qualities a false sense of securit