ing our prescribing to official preparations, to Council-approved articles, etc. With these we will not concern ourselves at present. We will take up only one point. He formulates a rule by which he says all physicians should be guided. The rule is:

"Should I ever be tempted to write a testimonial in favor of a proprietary medicine, I shall consider my action most carefully, review with great deliberation what I have written, THEN DE

STROY IT."

Now, this is very witty, tho not strictly original, but let us consider the ethics, or rather the true morality, of this bit of advice. I differentiate between ethics and true morality, because a thing may be conventionally ethical and at the same time immoral, and vice versa.

I have, for personal reasons, never in my life given a testimonial for anything, be it a medicine, a book, an instrument or any thing else and I can therefore discuss this phase of the subject with so much more freedom. Now, why should not a physician testify to the good effects of a remedy, proprietary or non-proprietary? It will be readily admitted that if a remedy is advertised to produce certain effects in certain diseases, but on trial proves worthless or dangerous, it is our duty to proclaim the fact to our professional brethren. So why not the other way? If we have tried a remedy in a number of cases, and is has proved efficient beyond any doubt, if after being very careful not to mistake post hoc for propter hoc we are decided in our mind, that a certain remedy possesses positive curative or palliative properties, being superior to other official and non-official remedies of its class, why should we not let the profession know it?

As a matter of fact the most "ethical" physician will tell his friend that he tried such and such a drug in such and such a disease and "it worked fine." If it is all right to inform one or ten of our personal friends about the virtues of a drug, why is it not all right to give that information to a thousand or ten thousand? Is there one single valid argument against so doing?

I laid down my pen and walked about the room, searching intently for an argument con, but have not succeeded in finding one. Of course a person should be careful in his reports and his testimony. But this goes without saying, and is as applicable to nonproprietary as to proprietary remedies. It is just as baneful, just as dishonest to report good results, when such results did not follow, from quinine or potassium iodide, as it is to report falsely good results from proprietary remedies. It might be said, that there are venal doctors who will write for a consideration testimonials on any remedy, even on remedies that they had never used. Certainly there are. But this should not deter the courageous physician from fulfilling his duty. For I consider it a duty. Just as it is a duty to expose worthless and fraudulent remedies, so it is a duty to report on and recommend valuable products. I repeat, the existence of venal "write-ups" should not deter the

honest physician from reporting his findings, from publishing his honest convictions. There are quacks, frauds and charlatans who are practicing medicine; should we all give up our profession on account of that? No, the honest man goes his own way regardless of the fact that there are scamps in the same line of business.

Truly, on thinking the matter over again, I can find no valid argument against a doctor speaking favorably of a remedy, either in a scientific article or in a testimonial. And to any one presenting one such argument, we will give a life subscription to the CRITIC AND GUIDE free.

Nostrums and the Guarantee.

I have referred in another place to the fact that the "guarantee" of the Pure Food and Drugs Act has proved a godsend to the worst nostrums. For the common people to which the patent medicines appeal are under the impression that the Government has something to do with guaranteeing the value and purity of the product. And how cleverly the fakirs work it! There is a fake obesity cure-Kellogg's Safe Fat Reducer; one of the "a pound a day” kind. That Kellogg gets in the guarantee wherever he can. Here is one of the slips that goes with every package:

AN ABSOLUTELY HARMLESS

SAFE FAT REDUCER Meets all the requirements of the Pure Food and Drug Law. Under date of December 17, 1906, the United States Department of Agriculture, issued to F. J. Kellogg Serial guarantee Number 1866 for his Safe Fat Reducer

6059 Woodlawn, Chicago, Ill., U. S. A., Jan. 1, 1903. After a thorough analysis of F. J. Kellogg's Safe Fat Reducer, I am prepared to state that there is nothing harmful or injurious in this remedy. It is perfectly pure and wholesome, and it is my judgment, based on a special knowledge of food values, running over a period of fifteen years, that this preparation ought to accomplish its purpose admirably, and reduce adipose tissue while at the same time sustaining the general health. This preparation should be classified as a food, pure and simple, and not as a medicine! (Signed) J. E. ALLWORTH, PH. C. Consulting Chemist for the Physicians' Supply Co. of the U. S.

And the fake analysis, which means nothing, is also meant to deceive the public: "Consulting chemists for the Physicians' Supply Co. of the U. S." They try to work in the "United States" wherever they can.

Wounds Received by a Physician in Discharge of his Duty. We learn from a newspaper item that among those recently decorated by President Fallières was a young obscure physician, Louis Bozy by name. This doctor lost one of his eyes in the discharge of his duty. While acting as assistant at an operation in one of the Paris hospitals he had an eye injured thru a drop of "poisonous matter" coming in contact with it. He knew that

an antidote must be applied immediately, but by doing this he would have left the chief surgeon unassisted, and remained at his post with his eye uncared for until the operation was completed. In consequence of his heroism he lost an eye and was confined to the hospital for a long time. President Fallières, in conferring the decoration, said that a wound received by a physician in the discharge of his duty was as honorable as one received on the battlefield.

Thanks for so much. The world do move. But we imagine that the time is not far distant when a wound received by a physician in the discharge of his duty will be considered more honorable than one received on the battlefield. And perhaps even a time will come when a wound received on the battlefield will be considered a disgrace—as much so as a black eye received in a drunken brawl is now. Individual fights and brawls are getting fewer and fewer in number and are being looked upon with more and more contempt-why may we not hope that the same will happen to the much more pernicious, much more deadly, international brawls, called wars?

We may, dear reader, we may.

Garbled Quotations.

Somebody said that by quotations you could convict the pope of atheism. It is certainly true that by quoting half sentences, of even entire sentences, but out of their context, you can make people say things diametrically different from those they did say. Here is a curious example. In the January issue of the CRITIC AND GUIDE in my letter from Lugano I said:

"For, unfortunately, I am not possessed of that self-hypnotizing power of the New Thoughters, Christian Scientists and other muddleheads, which could make me imagine for a moment, that everything is nice and lovely in this nice and lovely world, and that we are to be profoundly grateful for the great gifts and blessings which we, unworthy sinners, receive from the hands of the almighty and all-merciful God."

A lay publication in quoting my letter, starts as follows: "We are to be profoundly grateful for the great gifts and blessings which we, unworthy sinners, receive from the hands of the almighty and all-merciful God."

Quite a difference in the meaning.

Farcical Illustrations.

Illustrations that do not illustrate are worse than useless. They are annoying, they are irritating, they are exasperating. Unfortunately such illustrations are only too common, and especially so in the so-called X-ray pictures. A large percentage of skiagrams that we see in our medical journals are just so many blotches of printer's ink, and just as illuminating. Such quasi

illustrations are a fraud on the public, and while they increase the bulk of the article, they certainly do not add to, but take away from, its value.

A beautiful illustration of non-illustrating illustrations will be found in one of our medical weeklies for January 23d. Give us real useful illustrations or none at all. Ink blotches are neither ornamental nor instructive.

Bleached Flour.

All is not gold that glitters and the whitest flour is far from being the best, the advertisements of the manufacturers notwithstanding. Our housewives do not know that many flours are not naturally white, but are made so, as is the case with many of our blondes. The difference is this only: brunettes are bleached into blondes by the aid of hydrogen peroxide, while the chemical used in bleaching flour is nitrogen peroxide. A bleached blonde is generally looked upon with suspicion, and so should a bleached flour, for the bleaching process generates toxic substances of the nature of diazo-compounds. It seems that the gluten of the flour is also acted upon chemically and in a manner detrimental to its digestion. We do not know whether or not flour bleached by nitrogen peroxide or any other process is considered adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of the Pure Food and Drugs Act; if it isn't, it ought to be. And in the meantime housewives should avoid flours that are "too" white.

The Marathon Races.

The crazy, useless Marathon races, to which the papers devote so much space of late, are having a bad effect on our boys. Many of them want to become Dorandos, are running beyond their strength and the result will be many hopelessly dilated and deranged hearts. Altogether, too much or too violent exercise does more damage than no exercise, and I do wish our boys would take more interest in their heads than in their legs.

The Rules of the Council Should be Revised.

No, we don't say it now, for we have said it long ago, and we have said it many times. But Dr. Henry Beates of Philadelphia says it. At a meeting of the Philadelphia Branch of the American Pharmaceutical Association (see report in the Bulletin of the A. Ph. A. for April, p. 113; must have been a bitter pill for Mr. Hallberg to have to print it) Dr. Beates expressed his opinion that the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry should revise some of its rules. "In some instances," he said, "worthless remedies are given recognition because they comply with the rules; on the other hand, valuable preparations are denied recognition for not complying with the rules" [some of which, as we

have shown, are childish and silly]. "This attitude deprives us of some good remedies." Good for Dr. Beates. The profession is at last coming to recognize that while the Council is a useful institution it has been anything but infallible, while some of its arbitrary rules and methods deserved the severest condemnation.

The profession is waking up and common sense will prevail in the end. We have always said so and we repeat it now.

To What Purpose?

One of the State journals, published bi-monthly, contains in its January issue just 13 lines of editorial matter, and that not strictly original either. It is of course easy to publish such journals. But the question is: cui bono? What is the raison d'être of such journals? They are certainly no credit to either the medical profession of the State which the journal is supposed to represent, nor to medical journalism in general. So the question is: to what purpose?

Neglect of Hygiene by Physicians.

We referred in a previous editorial to the extremely unpleasant and unhygienic atmosphere prevailing, without exception (if there are exceptions we are not aware of them), in the rooms in which our colleagues gather for their meetings and banquets. Some readers wrote us that they agreed with us as to the truth of our statements, but they did not think it good policy to tell tales out of school, to say things which would have a tendency to put our profession in an unfavorable light. Those readers did not read the standing title on the cover page of the CRITIC AND GUIDE. The CRITIC AND GUIDE has no policy except the policy of Truth. And we cannot hope to correct any evils which exist in our profession unless we criticize them publicly. It is, therefore, with particular pleasure that we reproduce a portion of a letter from Dr. H. G. Wetheril, a Colorado physician, addressed by him to Colorado Medicine. He writes:

"In no single gathering is this so painfully evident as in the gatherings of physicians and surgeons for medical discussion. Almost without exception the rooms in which the meetings are held are small, stuffy and painfully over-crowded, and as if to add to the intensity of the toxicity of this suicidal atmosphere, half of them are smoking. Those who are away from the windows wish them opened and those who are near the windows are exposed to a most disagreeable and dangerous draught. Some submit to the asphyxiation. Some go home and some others, wiser still, stay away.

One's mental processes are markedly affected by such an atmosphere, and consequently the meetings are often dull and stupid and almost without value. A good paper may be presented