ngthened, led to the discovery that practically all of one
particular drug offered for sale in New York City was unfit to use and
calculated to kill in the emergency where alone it would be used.
Yesterday four lives and several million dollars were lost in a New
York fire because the hose was rotten or weak. As inspection and
testing were needed to insure hose equal to emergency pressure, so
inspection and testing of patent medicines and drugs are needed to make
legislation effectual.

Legislation and enforcement should reach the newspaper, magazine,
billboard, street car, that advertises a falsehood or less than the
essential truth regarding drugs, foods, and patent medicines. Public
sentiment condemns the advertising of many opportunities to commit
crime or to be disorderly or indecent or to injure one's neighbor. The
facts about hundreds of nostrums can be absolutely determined. The
advertising agency, whether secular or religious, that carries
misrepresentation of drugs and foods should be forbidden circulation
through the mails. The existence of such advertisements should be made
evidence of complicity in a public offense and punished accordingly.
Treat them as we treated the Louisiana lottery. Boards of health,
instead of furnishing names to druggists and manufacturers who want to
sell patent foods and medicines, should print circulars exposing
frauds, and punish so far as the law permits.

While trying to secure adequate legislation and efficient
administration of the above-mentioned standards, there is much that can
be done by individuals and clubs. We can give preference to those
journals that refuse drug and food advertisements unless evidence is
produced that the truth is told and that the goods are not harmful. We
can refuse to have in the house a paper or journal which prints notices
that lie or that conceal the truth. If this drastic measure would cut
us off entirely from daily papers, we could choose the least offensive
and petition it to exclude specific lying methods. When it preaches
health, honesty, and philanthropy, we can cut out of one issue the
noble editorial and the exploiting advertisements and send them to the
editor with our protest. Knowledge of the ingredients and dangers of
patent medicines should be a prerequisite for the practice of medicine
or pharmacy. We can help bring about such conditions, and we can
patronize physicians who send patients to drug stores that cater to
intelligence