endured by sick people, young and old, thousands of miles away from home, alone and uncared for.

It is clear that the only remedy for this state of affairs is the building of a dozen good sanatoriums in this dry land, where those who can pay a little or nothing at all can have a fair chance for life.

The present unsystematic, stupid way of dealing with this disease is infinitely more costly to the country than the suggested system of sanatoriums would be.

If the government will not undertake such a work -far more necessary than smallpox refuges-will not some man of means seize this unparalleled opportunity to help his suffering fellow-men?

The educators in New York who denounce corporal punishment are as popular with the pupils as are the doctors in prohibition. communities when they prescribe whiskey for coughs and colds-Philadelphia Ledger.

Turning Back the Glass.

I prayed Father Time for a very small boon,
And begged that he would not resist;
"Oh surely," I cried, "from your ages gone by,
One second would scarcely be missed-

"Just time to say 'yes' where before I said 'no,' And never again will I sue."

He smiled, and from under his shadowy cloak
The glass of his centuries drew.

"Look, mortal," he said, "and observe the result

If I should bestow your request;

No favors I show, and the one that you ask

I could not deny to the rest."

And then as I watched him, the quick-flowing sands Slipped down their monotonous track;

Each moment that hurried to make up the years
Some mortal had wished to have back.

And there was a sinner and there was a saint,
Would do it a different way;

The kings and the peasants, the rich and the poor,

A word, or an action, would stay.

Then dwindled the stream of the sands running

down,

Till hushed the petitioners grew;

Time bade me to look, and I saw we had reached

The morning creation was new.

-BLAINE MC LANDBURGH WILSON in

Two Men.

New York Sun.

I used to know a busy man;

His desk was very neat,

With every article in place,
Its order was complete.
He used to say he hadn't time
To let his system go,

And now he is immensely rich,
A billionaire, you know.

I also knew an idle man,

And his desk was a sight! He always had to clear a space When he sat down to write. He used to say he hadn't time To keep his blotter clear, And now his salary is just Four hundred plunks a year. -Sommerville Journal.

Proprietary Medicines.

IT is a good many years since the first serious attempt was made to compel the owners of proprietaries to publish formulas giving the exact composition of their wares. The fact that no such bill has ever passed and become a law in any State speaks badly for the intelligence or else the morality of the average legislator. From the standpoint of public policy nothing can be urged against a measure of this knind while a multitude of sound reasons can be given why such a law should exist in every State. That a measure which asks for justice to the purchaser, health to the community, enlightment to ignorance, and an end to base fraud and robbery should annually knock at the doors of legislative halls for admission, always to meet with denial would seem to indicate that "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

That the day is coming when a law of this kind must pass, seems certain to those who believe in the inherent righteousness of things and the constant trend of society toward higher ethical planes. Whatever State first adopts such a law will win undying renown for its people from the coming historians of the better times.

A bill of this kind has just been presented to the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the petition of Katherine Lent Stevenion and others, that seeks "to provide that the ingredients of patent or proprietary medicines shall be stated on packages or other receptacles thereof prepared for sale."

The conviction has been growing for years that in many of the proprietary medicines in which so many people indulge, resides the first insidious introductions to alcohol and narcotics that later develop into souldestroying habits. We presume that it is the awakening to the realization of this truth that has brought about the introduction of this bill to the Massachusetts legislature at this time. If the temperance people are backing it, this means that new strength has been added to the medical and pharmaceutical forces that have for so long striven to right this huge wrong against humanity.

The bill provides a penalty of "fifty cents on each separate parcel or package sold, to be assessed on each separate parcel which may be contained in a case, barrel or wholesale package."

Any person can make a complaint to the district police and they must investigate the case and lay it before the board of health or a magistrate for prosecution.

The passage of such a bill as this would certainly be a most telling blow against a portion of the proprietary medicine business. as at present conducted. If after it became a law some organization like that of the Women's Christian Temperance Union should make it a duty to see to its enforcement they could very quickly compel obedience and check this powerful and growing evil.

Only by the publishing of the formulas on bottles or packages is it possible for people to save themselves from the lurking danger that surrounds the use of such preparations. Every human being has the right to demand such knowledge and if he fails to do so he is remiss in his duty to himself. Children should be protected by the State from the soothing syrup trap in which they are caught when too young to protest. This making of morphine fiends of infants while yet in the cradle is a disgrace to modern civilization and the creating of a liking for alcohol in people who would be horrified at the thought of their own danger did they but know it, is criminal in the extreme. The horrid mockery of the catarrh cure Moloch is so overwhelmingly savage in its characteristics that it is incredible that any intelligent community should permit of it. The thousands of ignorant victims who are lured into spending their money for so-called cures that make their first misery blessed as compared with the fate into which they are tempted, is a sight that is indescribably pathetic.

Aside from these positive dangers lies the fact that many of these preparations are pure and simple frauds upon the community. Their intrinsic worth is trifling as compared with what is charged for them, and where they benefit once they injure a dozen times. Their dupes while running after imaginary health are sinking themselves deeper into the toils of chronic and sometimes acute disease. Did they but know the true nature of much of the stuff they buy, they could not be tempted into taking it. Remove from these proprietary remedies the charm of secrecy and few of them would survive a month. Their mystery constitutes a fool's paradise into which the ignis fatuus of hope tempts millions. Take away the mystery from them and few would care to invest, as common sense would get a chance to come to their rescue.

Without doubt some of the combinations do have a beneficial effect, in proper cases, but they constitute a minority. The ex

posure of the formulas of these, it might be claimed, would lead to commercial piracy. The reply to such a claim is that all such should become in fact what they are supposed by the public to be-patent medicines. By taking out a patent, one would secure a 17-year monopoly, and at the end of that time he could, by diligent effort do what Mr. Fletcher has done for Castoria, secure his rights with the public by dilligent advertising of the name or other device as a trade-mark. Any article that is not worth patenting should have no rights that the public is bound to respect. Any article that is good enough to patent should in 17 years give to its discoverer a substantial reward besides leaving him master of the field in any competition that may, at the expiration of that time, come up against him.

Secrecy in medicine is opposed to public

policy and should not be tolerated. anti-scientific and anti-social.

It is It is a sys

tem which would have left us grovelling in charms, magic and incantations as cures for all ailments had it been pursued as a policy by every physician of the past. It would have kept us in a condition of savagery had there not been men imbued with the spirit of science willing to reveal their discoveries and carry us on to civilization. It would have held us in the thraldom of fetish worship had not a non-secret religion brought ethical truth to our understanding. It is a relic of the barbarous habits of a nonhumanitarian past and a stain on our present civilization. The only people benefitted by it are those who deserve no consideration from a free and intelligent nation. They have added nothing to the sum of human knowledge. They have cursed with permanent ailments more than they have relieved from transient ones.

While the advocating of a bill of this kind. may seem inconsistent on the part of a journal devoted to the drug trade, we cannot but feel it a duty to our fellow men to do all in our power to assist measures of this kind whenever or wherever they may appear for we know as others cannot the dangers and evils of many proprietary medicines sold to the uninformed public.

-Druggists' Circular.

Items in our price list marked "M. C. W.” refer to chemicals of highest purity as manufactured by the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works.

Depressent Drugs and Sudden Death.

It is interesting to note an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association on the relation of sudden deaths to the consumption of depressing antipyretics. The mortality of sudden deaths per thousand were as follows: In 1900, 1.18; in 1901, 1.31; in 1902, 1.34. Thus, in these three years there was a gradual but continuous crescendo; in 1903 the ratio diminished and was only 1.28.

There has been some discussion among sanitarians and public health officials as to the reason for this decrease, and, says the Journal A. M. A.: "A portion of the decrease has been ascribed definitely-and with considerable plausibility-to a certain cause. At the beginning of last year the board of health, suspecting that many prescriptions for phenacetin were being filled by druggists with acetanilid, or with a mix

ture of phenacetin and acetanilid, sent inspectors to obtain definite information on this matter. Of the 373 samples of so-called phenacetin 58 were pure phenacetin; 315 were adulterated with cheaper drugs, mainly acetanilid, and in 267 cases contained more acetanilid than phenacetin; 32 samples were pure acetanilid. The commissioner made these facts public, and threatened to expose and prosecute all druggists who would thereafter be found committing this misdemeanor.

"It is very interesting at least to find that a single year after the investigation and supposed consequent reform on the part of the dispensing pharmacists, there should be a slight reduction in the actual sudden death rate from heart disease, and that at a time when for many years there has been a constant increase in the death rate from this cause. It is well known that acetanilid is a distinctly depressant drug for the heart. Professor Jacoby, of New York, always insists that it is an actual tissue poison, to be used only with great care, and many therapeutists teach that it is the underlying cause for the increase in reported sudden deaths that have occurred in recent years." -Merck's Archives.

Wealth should neither be the object of our enmity nor the basis of our consideration. The inconsiderate denunciation of the rich is mischievous. It perverts the mind, poisons the heart and furnishes no excuse to crime. No poor man was ever made richer or happier by it.-Benj. Harrison.

THE PHYSICIAN OF THE FUTURE.

Dr. J. Hericourt, in an article in La Revue, says that "There is no need to argue at length in order to show that the physician of today has but little to do with the evolution and result of the greater number of diseases. The reason for this is that the physician, in the great majority of cases, only sees the end of the disease, although the stages of a disease, particularly its first phases, are practically all that the physician can control. It is especially during these first phases that the organism has need of being helped in its battle, and that hygienic or therapeutic elementary prescription would have the power of giving the organism support that would be efficatious, since experience proves that is frequently the lack of the most ordinary resources that decides the end of a disease. The physician, however, is not called upon at this time, as these first morbid phases are those which do not detract from the person's appearance of health and his comfort.

6.

When the third phase of the disease appears," the writer mentioned says, *the physician is called in, the patient at this time feeling that he is ill. By this time, however, the organism is already defeated and the disease victorious. What can a physician do when he finds himself face to face with an organic disease such as Bright's disease, heart disease, or diabetes, except to lessen a little the effects of the disease and to retard a trifle its natural evolution? On the other hand, how much good could he have done if he had been called in in time to modify the disorders of which these diseases are the later results? If it is a question of infectious diseases, of tuberculosis for example, has it not been proved that the third stage of this disease is incurable, whereas the earlier stages of all are morbid states, which medicine or natural agents modify most effectively? the case of acute infectuous diseases, the physician, by his timely appearance, could have destroyed the sources of contagion and thus done away with the possibility even of such diseases.

In

"If the physician, in place of diseased patients had healthy people to preserve, disease to foresee and to destroy its germ, how beneficent would be his work and how much his social and moral role would be elevated! A few heads of large enterprises have comprehended the advantages which they can derive from regular hygienic care of their employees, with the result that

they have charged certain physicians with assuring the hygiene of their factories, of their employees and their families. This is the real and sane method of treatment from the material as well as the moral point of view, and if families, in place of calling a physician, when a serious disease appears, frequently incurable or at most but alightly affected by present therapeutic methods, would have a regular physician, whose continual watching of the state of health of the family would produce not the problematic cure of disease, but the avoiding of disease altogether, then we should have the ideal relation of physician and patient."

Making Compressed Tablets.

By GEORGE B. WEIDEMANN.

IF a pharmacist wishes to manufacture compressed tablets and triturates he can do so very economically, as the apparatus necessary for such work will be found in every drug store, with the exception of the machine, and its purchase is his only real expense.

The preparation of the material to be compressed is the most difficult part of the work, for each substance has its own peculiarity and must be treated in a little different manner, but the general plan of procedure is the same.

The ingredients must first be reduced to a very fine powder, granulated, dried and lubricated before it is ready to compress.

After thoroughly mixing the powder, to granulate, water, dilute alcohol, or a mixture of syrup and water, are the substances usually employed, but water makes a firmer granule, which is less liable to disintegrate in handling.

The powder is moistened until it has the consistency of dough and is then forced through a No. 16 or No. 20 sieve and dried. For a small tablet or triturate, a No. 20 sieve is better, but for larger tablets a No. 16 sieve is used.

To facilitate drying, a drying oven may be used, but this is not necessary, for if spread on paper in a dry place the granules will dry very quickly; but if this method is employed, a piece of paper should be laid over the material to keep out particles of dust.

After the material is thoroughly dry, it is lubricated, and for this several substances are used. The manufacturers spray the granules with liquid petrolatum, using 10 or 12 drops to the pound, and about 2 per cent of talcum is added to prevent the material from adhering to the dies; but I have found this very unsatisfactory, for if only a few drops too much of liquid petrolatum are added the material will not compress, and to eliminate this possibility of failure, I use French chalk entirely and have been successful in all instances.

The material is now ready to compress. The tablet should not be made too hard or it will not disintegrate when swallowed, but it must be made sufficiently hard to prevent disintegration in handling. To facilitate solubility a small quantity of an inert powder is added to the ingredients and a mix

ture of sugar of milk 5 parts and cane sugar 1 part is usually added.

With a Stokes machine it is possible to compress about 100 tablets a minute, as one revolution of the wheel completes the tablet.

Quite a few substances can be compressed without any preparation, as the material comes from the manufacturer granulated. To this class belong such chemicals as salol, ammonium chloride, bromides, iodides and chlorate of potash.

Triturates, such as strychnia and its salts, corrosive sublimate, calomel, calcium sulphide and arsenuous acid can be made at a cost of from 2 to 4 cents a thousand (labor not being accounted for), while the manufacturer will charge from 35 to 50 cents for a like quantity. All tablets can be made at from 10 to 40 per cent. of what they cost to purchase them from the jobbing house, excepting such tablets as can be bought for a slight advance of the drug itself, and hence it would not pay one to make them.

If a pharmacist puts up headache tablets, cold tablets, or voice lozenges, he can save about 75 per cent. by making them himself, as the manufacturers charge more proportionately for special formulas than for their listed ones.

Some tablets can be made by like methods, but quite a few require special manipulation.

Sodium salicylate, for instance, should be granulated with a gum, and a syrup of acacia is often employed.

Quinine sulphate requires the addition of 5 per cent. powdered acacia and 10 per cent. powdered cane sugar, or else it will not compress.

Many others require special manipulation which can only be learned by experience. with the drug itself.-Am. Jour. Ph.

The Human Body.

A pupil in a village school, who had been requested to write an essay on the human body, handed in the following: "The human body consists of the head, thorax, abdomen and legs. The head contains the brains in case there are any. The thorax contains the heart and lungs, also the liver and lights. The abdomen contains the bowels of which there are five-a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y. The legs extend from the abdomen to the floor, and have hinges at the top and middle to enable a fellow to sit when standing or to stand when sitting."