They did the patent medicines some harm? Perhaps so. But they simply cleaned out and cleaned up a host of drug manufacturing houses who were advertising and furnishing their wares to a multitude of doctors who were giving them to their patients without the slightest idea of their composition or mode of compounding.

What at first seemed a bonanza to the medical profession has proven to be a boomerang. Their friends, the doctors, found this out long ago, and that booming subscription list that started off so merrily is beginning to shrivel. Professional anathemas have taken the place of laudation. The American Medical Association, instead of clapping its hands and crying "Sic 'em," is trying to say quietly, "Shut up."

And they are shutting up. They might as well. They know where their money comes from, these nice little Sunday School editors do. There are a whole lot of things they don't know, but they do know where their salaries come from.

The patent medicine fraud has served as a headline for their lavender-scented pages for the last time. No money could hire them to say it again. It means too rauch. It is a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways. It cuts the doctors. it cuts their subscription list, it cuts their sal

A

aries, it cuts public confidence, it cuts everything but the patent medicines which it was designed to cut.

It may be that the day has come that secret medicines must go. I sincerely hope so. A man who is putting out a medicine that he is ashamed to fully describe, both as to contents and method of compounding, any such man is a fraud, whether he has a diploma or not, whether he sails under medical ethics or medical piracy. A man who is conducting any business that has anything to conceal from the public is essentially a criminal, and ought to be treated as such, whether he is editing Collier's Weekly, masquerading as a lady in a Home Journal, or compounding a cough mixture for the people. The day of secrecy has gone for good. The day of pretenses is past. Let us hope so!

"The Great American Fraud" now sticks on the backs of those who invented the phrase. That is Well, let it be. probably where it belongs.

Little Freddy Adams and Bessie Bok are now making their final bow before the footlights. Their faces are red and worried and frightened. Already they sweaty. They have been very much are scampering away, when the curtain. will fall, leaving a disappointed audience to stare at the word "Ichabod" plainly printed on the drop curtain in large, black capital letters.

T last they have come, the set of books we have been looking for very eagerly. It is in six volumes, called The Home Medical Library, by Kenelm Winslow, M. D., formerly assistant professor of therapeutics at the Harvard University. He has a great many other titles which I need not refer to. It is enough to say that he is eminently fitted for the task of editing such books.

It is an attempt to bring to the home a great deal of medical and surgical and hygienic advice from authors of undoubt ed ability and authority. It is a move on the part of the medical profession

that I have long hoped for and expected. Surely, the medical profession ought to have done this a great many years ago. There has been great indifference, if not hostility, on the part of the medical profession, to make any serious attempt to instruct the home in matters of medicine and surgery. It has been thought best to leave all such matters to the family physician.

Of course these volumes do not propose in any sense to take the place of the family physician or surgeon. The attempt, however, is a much needed one to bring into the home easily comprehended assistance, so that in times of

trouble first aid may be intelligently administered, and in times of health disease and accident can be avoided.

The contributors are all men of learning and practical experience. The books are illustrated wherever necessary to convey the meaning of the writer. The language is plain, and within the understanding of the average reader.

The set of books, at present, is supplied by the Review of Reviews Company, New York City. They are given as a premium to subscribers for the Review. Whether they have made arrangements to furnish them in any other way I am not informed. But surely this set of books ought to be purchasable somewhere, for they should be within the reach of every home. While they are evidently intended for the non-professional reader, they are so full of good sense and practical assistance the physician would find them very convenient. The first volume contains an index so arranged that any disease or accident can be quickly referred to in the proper volume and page.

To furnish medical advice to the home is the present aim of THE COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL. We are glad to welcome assistance from any reliable source. We are therefore especially pleased that at this time such a valuable set of books should appear, and we shall lose no opportunity to recommend them to our readers.

It will render our task much easier to know that in the home where THE CoLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL goes is a set of these works. Readers of such books are much better able to appreciate the sort of work we are undertaking to do, and we hope that an intelligent reading of our JOURNAL will in some degree create appreciative readers for such books.

In order to set forth exactly what the editors of these books intend to accomplish by their publication, we will quote a few paragraphs from the preface:

"Consider first the average American household, where the family physician cannot call every day. Not a day finds this household without the need of information in medicine or hygiene or sanitation. More efforts of the profession are thwarted by ignorance than by epidemic. Not to supplant the doctor, but

91

to supplement him, carefully prepared information should be at hand on the hygiene of health-sanitation, diet, exercise, clothing, baths, etc.; on the hygiene of disease-nursing and sick-room conduct, control of the nervous and insane, emergency resources, domestic remedies; above all, on the prevention of disease, emphasizing the folly of self-treatment; pointing out the danger of delay in seeking skilled medical advice with such troubles as cancer, where early recognition may bring permanent cure; showing the benefit of simple sanitary precautions, such as the experimentstations method of exterminating the malariabreeding mosquito. The volumes treating of these subjects cannot be made too clear, nontechnical, fundamental, or too well guarded by the supervision of medical men known favorably to the profession.

"Again, the physician cannot come on time to save life, limb, or looks to the victim of many a serious accident. And yet some bystander could usually understand and apply plain rules for inducing respiration, applying a splint, giving an emetic, soothing a burn or the like, so as to safeguard the sufferer till the doctor's arrival-if only these plain rules were in such compact form that no office, store or home in the land need be without them.

"Finally, the doctor cannot come at all to hundreds of thousands of sailors, automobilists, and other travelers, to ranchers, miners and country dwellers of many sorts. This third class has had, hitherto, little choice between some 'Practice of Medicine,' too technical to be helpful, on the one hand, and on the other the dubious literature of unsanctioned 'systems'; or the startling 'cure-all' assertions emanating from many proprietors of remedies; or Complete Family Physicians,' which offer prescriptions as absurd for the layman as would be dynamite in the hands of a child, with superfluous and loathsome pictures appealing only to morbid curiosity, and with a general inaccuracy utterly out of touch with twentieth-century knowledge. What such people need, much more than the dwellers in settled communities, is to learn the views of modern medicine upon the treatment of the ever-present common ailments-the use of standard remedies, cautions against the abuse of narcotics, lessons of discrimination against harmful, useless' or expensive 'patent medicines,' and proper rules of conduct for diet, nursing, and general treatment."

Now, with all this I am in hearty sympathy. And if it be true that books can be written for the assistance, guidance and protection of the household in matters of medicine and hygiene, why is it not also true that a medical journal for the home can be made of great value, even greater value than these other useful books?

Of greater value, first, because the medical journal comes to the home fresh every month.

Second, it conveys new information that may be discovered or tested from time to time.

Third, it can keep the people in touch with medical legislation, in which every citizen is vitally interested.

Fourth, it can give the people an opportunity to ask questions on vital subjects. For, no matter how well a book may be written, it will arouse in the mind of the reader many queries which would be worth a great deal to have answered. Fifth, a medical journal for the home can not only bring the general truths relating to the welfare of the home, but can discuss new and living issues as they arise. There are a great many of them, that are being discussed in medical journals to-day, about which the people ought to know. The following are samples:

What should children be taught concerning their sexual life?

What should the family be taught concerning the control or regulation of procreation?

What should the public be taught about the prevention and suppression of venereal diseases?

What measures, if any, should be enforced to qualify men and women for marriage?

And so on. We might cite a host of living and exceedingly important subjects that are already clamoring for discussion and answer. A medical journal for the home can take up all these subjects.

A subject will not be considered finished at any time. Readers have a chance to talk back, answer questions, criticise, make suggestions of any sort. In this way it amounts to a public assembly, carefully and thoughtfully discussing questions which cannot be discussed through the newspaper, through the religious journal, or through the popular magazine.

Whether we shall be able to carry on such a journal or not, remains to be seen. We understand the magnitude of the task. Seven or eight years' experience

in the work has taught us our Own limitations.

ter.

Help will be welcome from any quarter. Suggestions will be thankfully received. Criticisms will be treated with courtesy. We have no time for quarreling with any one. We are determined to push forward, looking neither to the right nor the left. We are trying to bring to the home fair and frank information on vital subjects that at present is not supplied to the home in any way, subjects that no home can afford to be entirely ignorant of.

ing we are glad to welcome to our assistIn attempting this gigantic undertak

ance such a set of books as The Home Medical Library. We wish every reader of THE COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL could have a set of them. We believe many of our readers will have, in the near future. If there is anything we can do to make our readers see the importance of owning such books we are not going to neglect to do it. It would be far better for the home to be supplied with such books as these than with the so-called classics, much that is called history, and nearly all that is labeled fiction.

J

Molasses as a Remedy.

UST old-fashioned, black molasses. New Orleans molasses, sometimes called treacle. That is the kind you want to get. Not white syrup or clear amber molasses, but dark molasses, the darker the better.

Now, then, I am going to tell you what to do with it. You have a cold, perhaps with a rasping cough that won't quit, hangs on day after dav. Take a teacupful of your black molasses, a teacupful of New England rum and a teacupful of water that has been boiled. Put them together in a bottle, shake it up, set it away in a cool place. It will keep indefinitely.

For that cold and rasping cough take a tablespoonful of this mixture before each meal and at bedtime. If you wake up in the night with a coughing spell take another spoonful of it. If you have a violent cold with running nose and sore throat take a little bottle of this stuff with

best residence section of our city, the head of a happy and interesting family. His contributions to our JOURNAL are made without any other remuneration save the consciousness of doing some

thing for the good of humanity. At the suggestion of the editor, he has consented to allow a small portrait of himself to be used in connection with his articles.

W

95

HEN I began to study medicine I knew more about almost any other subject than the care of my body. I had been brought up on the farm and lived an active life. My habits were necessarily simple and frugal. I was a good scholar, as scholars go in a country village, had studied anatomy and physiology on my own account long before I began the study of medicine. But physiology in those days gave no instructions concerning the care of the body.

It was in the spring when I began the study of medicine. I went to live with my preceptor and took care of his horse and garden to pay for my board. This furnished me only a small amount of exercise in comparison to what I had been used to. I was terribly in earnest in my studies, consequently spent several hours each day and sometimes far into the night studying anatomy, physiology, materia medica, the theory and practice of medicine, and such books. My preceptor, an old physician and somewhat noted surgeon, was apparently as ignorant as I concerning all those little things which go so far towards keeping a person in good form and in good spirits. I began to suffer functional derangements on account of the change in my habits; too much study, too little exercise, began to tell on me. I had always been perfectly healthy, but now I had spells of biliousness, became constipated, had something resembling sick headache all day, every day, felt languid. An irresistible lassitude held my bodily powers and mental action in bondage. I wondered why it was I did not enjoy my work in the

garden as I used to enjoy work. I complained several times to my preceptor, who suggested pills, which I took with. little or no relief; he suggested a bitter tonic, which of course had the same result. Not a word about my change of habits, not a syllable concerning my diet and exercise. He never thought of such things and I had to learn them years afterwards by bitter experience. Í got along fairly well and was so engrossed in my studies that I gave as little heed as possible to these ailments.

At last I was prepared for college and my preceptor concluded he would also go to college and take a post-graduate course. We soon found ourselves in New York City attending lectures in the Medical Department of the University of the City of New York.

Here my studies were increased fourfold. Many hours each day were spent in lecture rooms, laboratories and dissecting rooms. I did not go out with the boys at night, putting in all my extra time in dissections and the study of books. After two or three months I became decidedly ill, furred tongue, pallid complexion, confusion of mind, constipation. I imagined I had kidney disease, sometimes thought I had malaria.

The boys in our class thought a great deal of our lecturer on materia medica. His name was Wm. Thompson, a noted physician in New York City. We students used to say that if we ever got sick we would like to have Dr. Loomis to make the diagnosis and Dr. Thompson to prescribe. He was a man of many remedies, his lectures were wonderfully

interesting, he seemed to know all about drugs, prescriptions and medical formulas.

My preceptor began to worry about the state of health I was in. He suggested that I go to Dr. Thompson and get him to prescribe for me.

I shall never forget that visit. I was wonderfully impressed by his august presence. I took my place in the waiting room with numerous other patients and was finally admitted to his private consulting room.

I had a vague notion that I ought to tell him about my change of habits, and started to do so. He cut me short, however, by asking me a few questions, then wrote two prescriptions on a piece of paper and handed them to me. He asked me not a word about my diet, not a word about my habits. He had no interest whatever in my method of life. He looked at my tongue, poked me in the ribs, chest and stomach, reached a hasty conclusion, handed me the prescriptions and that was the end of it.

I took the prescriptions to the drug store, and received two large bottles of medicine. As well as I could judge the one was a tonic and the other a laxative. The tonic stimulated me so that I could not sleep and the laxative physicked me very freely. I had to discontinue them both after a few days.

But I was no better. I was worse in every way. This did not cause any falling off of my confidence in him, I took down his many prescriptions with the same earnestness as before. His failure to help me and the certainty that he had made me worse instead of better curiously did not abate one bit my childish faith in him.

Well, this went on and we had no particular change for several months. I finally became adjusted to the sedentary habits which were forced upon me, thanks to a good constitution. Self-instinct came to my relief, after which I left off eating certain meats and food and eating more of other kinds, so that just before spring came I was feeling fairly well again.

But, how woefully ignorant I was. I had learned many things about drugs,

about chemistry, but I had not learned one solitary thing about the care of my body. I did not know that the food which was good for a farm boy was not adapted to the necessities of the student. I did not know that it was want of outdoor exercise that was making me sick. I had not the slightest idea of any of this.

I slept in a small room, with the window closed, for being in the city, I was afraid of burglars.

I had no time for exercise and as a consequence I craved very little water to drink, therefore I did not drink much water. Hurrying from boarding house to lecture room, one block or so away, was the only exercise I had.

was.

I wonder I got through it as well as I did. If my mother had been with me she would have told me what my trouble She would have fixed up some herbs, told me to eat less meat, made some broths, perhaps, instructed me to keep the window open and take more exercise. She would have done just such. little common sense things, but there was no such adviser. I was far away from common sense and home remedies, I was in a great city among great doctors and professors of medicine, chemistry, materia medica and what not.

I might as well have been among a gang of Zulus, as with such men to guide me through an attempt to adjust my life. from a healthy farm boy to the life of a student. Not one of these men had the slightest idea how I ought to conduct myself in order to get the best out of my life and to make the best of my opportunities at college. Indeed, if I had been in Zulu land, among half naked men, I would have been better off, so far as my bodily health was concerned. The other boys who went out nights and interrupted their studious life by grand old sprees, were better off than I was.

And this was the sort of education I was receiving to fit me to go out in the world to teach people how to live. I was studying chemistry, instead of the common sense of diet and nutrition. I was becoming familiar with various drugs, with chemical reactions, and all the while I was neglecting my body woefully, overlooking the loss of health through study