t about one
hundred millions of dollars are paid annually for patent medicines in
the United States. As explaining this, in part, he affirmed that as
many as five companies each expended over one million dollars annually
in advertising patent medicines.

_What Are the Good Ones Good For?_--In any great movement, when a
dormant public suddenly awakens to the fact that a fraud has been
perpetrated or a wrong committed, the instinctive and overwhelming
desire is for far-reaching reform. In efforts to obtain needed and
radical improvement, and with the impetus of a sense of wrong dealing,
the pendulum of public opinion is apt to swing too far in an opposite
direction. There are bad patent medicines--the proof of their
fraudulent character is clear and overwhelming; but there are good
ones whose merits have been obscured by the cloud of wholesale and
popular condemnation. It is true that the manufacturers of even some
of the valuable ones have an absurd habit of claiming the impossible.
This attitude is to be regretted, for the makers have thus often
caused us to lose faith in the really helpful uses to which their
products might be put.

However, it is well in condemning the bad not to overlook the good.
The mere fact that a medicine is patented, or that it is a so-called
proprietary remedy, does not mean that it is valueless or actually
harmful. The safety line is knowledge of the medicine's real nature,
its uses and its dangers; the rules given above should be rigorously
followed.

It is far easier to give general indications for the guidance of those
wishing to shun unworthy patent medicines than to enable the reader to
recognize the worthy article. It is safe to assume, however, that
there are certain simple remedies, particularly those for external
application, which have a definite use and are dependable. In justice
it must be said that great improvement has taken place, and is now
taking place in the ethical character of patent medicines, owing to
recent agitation, and what is true concerning them to-day may not be
true to-morrow.

The only proper, ethical patent medicine is the one showing its exact
composition, and refraining from promise of a cure in any disease.
Such a one might, nevertheless, advertise its purity, reliability,
advantageous mode of manufacture, and the excellence of its
ingredients with more modest and truthful claims as to its use.

The purchaser of a patent medicine pays not only for the