ates afflicted with the so-called incurable diseases. The very
fact of the serious nature of their complaint, and the dread of
surgical intervention, makes them easy victims to the allurement of
"sure cures."

The committee on the prevention of tuberculosis of the Charity
Organization Society of New York City has announced in decided terms
that there is no specific medication for consumption. Cancer,
likewise, cannot be cured by the use of internal medicine alone.
Surgery holds out the greatest hope in this dread disease. The
medicines claiming to cure these diseases are, therefore, of the most
fraudulent nature. Their use is positively harmful, for in taking them
priceless time is lost.

Never temporize if there is any suspicion of the existence of such
diseases as consumption or cancer. Self-treatment with patent
medicines in such cases is worse than useless--it is actually
dangerous to life itself. Consult a physician at the earliest possible
moment, and put no faith in patent medicines.

There are, however, as has been pointed out, certain patent and
proprietary medicines which may properly be employed by the physician.
These include the newly discovered, manufactured chemicals of known
composition and action; and single substances or combinations of known
drugs in known proportions, which can only be made to best advantage
by those having the adequate facilities. The habit of prescribing
proprietary mixtures of several substances for special diseases is,
however, generally a matter of laziness, carelessness, or ignorance on
the doctor's part. This follows because no disease is alike in any two
patients; because any one disease has many phases and stages; and
because a doctor should always treat the patient and not the disease.
Thus a doctor, after carefully questioning and examining the patient,
should adjust the remedy to the peculiarities of the patient and
disease. It is impossible to make a given combination of drugs fit all
patients with the same disease.

The quantity of patent medicine sold in the United States is enormous.
A series of articles by Samuel Hopkins Adams appeared in _Collier's
Weekly_ during 1905 and 1906, in which he not only showed the
fraudulent character of many of the best-known patent medicines,
giving their names and most minute details concerning them, but
furnished much reliable information in an interesting and convincing
manner. In the course of these articles he pointed out tha