pages, which shall most clearly expose the pernicious influence of nostrums and secret remedies, upon the health and morals of the community." 1

"The time will come when that system of legislation which allows unprincipled men, for their private benefit, to send forth patent medicines under the great seal of the nation, will be seen to be no other than a licensed imposition on the public. Health and life are too valuable to be thus sacrificed. Any man who really believes that he has discovered the means of mitigating human suffering, is bound, by every principle of morality and benevolence, to publish it to the world. The power to do good implies and involves an obligation to do it, and the fact of an attempt to conceal from men that which is represented to be of paramount importance for them to know, is presumptive evidence of want of integity. The triumph of ignorance over science is the precursor of the downfall of our republic." 2 XLIII. WE RECOMMEND that local Boards of Health, and others interested, endeavor to prevent the sale and use of unwholesome, spurious, and adulterated articles, dangerous to the public health, designed for food, drink, or medicine.

The evil suggested in this recommendation is nearly allied to that preceding. It is one of immense magnitude and importance, and exists to an extent greater than has been generally supposed. Prodigious quantities of spurious articles, of food, drink, and medicine, which are highly injurious, are daily palmed upon the public by mercenary and fraudulent manufacturers and dealers. And it is generally conceded that a great amount of disease and numerous premature deaths are thereby produced.

Food is adulterated in various ways. A recent writer enumerates the following purposes of these adulterations :

"1. To make the substance more saleable by improving its appearance, by the addition of some body innocuous or otherwise.

"2. To depreciate its quality, by adding to it some substance which will diminish its real, without altering its appar

1 Appendix to Transactions New York Medical Society, Vol. VII, pp. 96, 98.

3 Dr. Alden. American Quarterly Register, Vol. XII, p. 263.

ent strength or general appearance. This is generally a very deadly fraud.

3. "To depreciate its quality by the addition of some simple substance, as water, or, if it be a solid body, as plaster of paris, sand, &c."

Bread is often adulterated with alum, carbonate of ammonia, carbonate of magnesia, sulphate of copper and zinc, &c., to improve its appearance, when made of flour of inferior quality. Butter and cheese are often poisoned with coloring matter. Milk is watered, sugar sanded, and various other intentional frauds are practiced. Unintentional adulterations may also sometimes take place by means of keeping or cooking different kinds of food.

Drink is also very extensively adulterated. It is said that very little of what is sold as champagne wine is made from the juice of the grape, but is a deleterious compound of other substances. Few of other kinds of spirituous liquors go to the consumer in a pure state. It is the opinion of eminent temperance reformers that one of the principal causes of the sad sanitary effects of intemperance arises from the poisonous substances compounded with the pure spirit and taken in the intoxicating cup. Other kinds of more ordinary drink, not intoxicating, and even water itself, may be adulterated and rendered unfit for use.

Drugs and medicines have been adulterated by the foreign producer, manufacturer and dealer, expressly for the American market, and vast quantities of such articles have been imported and sold in this country. Some of our own producers, manufacturers, and dealers, also, have been guilty of a similar fraud. By careful study the properties and mode of operation of the various articles used as medicine have been ascertained, and the intelligent, conscientious, curative physician, can estimate their effect with some degree of accuracy. It is necessary, however, to enable him to do this successfully, that they should be of known purity and strength. If spurious, of inferior quality, or adulterated with other substances, not contained in the genuine article, disappointment follows, and the patient suffers and perhaps dies. This result may happen

under the advice of the best curative medical skill, and life may be, and has actually been lost, from some defect existing alone in the medical remedies used. A mere statement of this fact will render obvious the importance of this recommendation. In some of the governments of Europe no one is allowed to deal in drugs and medicines unless properly educated and licensed for the purpose; and a constant governmental supervision is exercised over all apothecaries, to keep them within the line of their specific duties, and to prevent them from selling articles which may be injurious to health. The system of free trade, and the entire absence of all such supervision in this country, has led many incompetent and fraudulent manufacturers and dealers to enter largely into this kind of business, and a system of imposition and positive evil has been carried on, which, if fully known, would fill the people with astonish

ment.

The subject was brought to the attention of Congress, and, on the 26th of June, 1848, "an act to prevent the importation of adulterated and spurious drugs and medicines," was passed. Under this act special examiners are appointed to reside in the various ports of entry, to carry the law into execution. Dr. W. J. Bailey, the examiner at New York, has reported that, during ten months ending April, 1849, about 90,000 pounds of various kinds of drugs have been rejected and refused admittance at the custom-house in that city alone! Among these were 16,989 pounds of rhubarb; 3,253 pounds of opium; 34,570 pounds of spurious yellow bark; 12,483 pounds of jalap; 5,058 ounces of iodine, and large quantities of various other articles. It has been said that "more than half of many of the most important chemical and medicinal preparations, together with large quantities of crude drugs, come to us so much adulterated, or otherwise deteriorated, as to render them not only worthless as a medicine, but often dangerous."

We extract from a report on this subject, by Hon. T. O. Edwards, M. D., the following passage:-"That adulterations of medicines, to a very considerable extent, will be carried on in this country, none can deny. Had Congress the power to prevent it, by a general law, it might be avoided. The general

government has done all in its power, and it is incumbent on the several states, by special statute, to render penal the conduct that endangers the lives and health of the citizens. No one can believe that adulterations here would be carried to the extent practised by foreigners. It is scarcely presumable that all the druggists will be engaged in a traffic so nefarious. The rivalry of business, the pride of the profession, and the higher and nobler motives of humanity, will be equal to the ingenuity and invention of the dishonest, and will effect its exposure. If this law be faithfully complied with, the house that sells an adulterated and spurious medicine must needs have made it; and the watchfulness of the profession, together with the numerous medical journals, jealous of the interests and informed of the rights of the medical profession, will proclaim the fraud. Law and public opinion will point to the remedy. The law requiring all medicinal agents imported to be pure, and of an acknowledged standard, will give an impetus to the employment of talents and capital in our own country. Having the advantage of the protection afforded by the duty, and a further guard against frauds by this law, American enterprise will soon rival older and more experienced chemists in the manufacture of necessary articles."

The Revised Statutes of Massachusetts contain the following provisions of law on the subject :

"SECT. 1. If any person shall knowingly sell any kind of diseased, corrupted, or unwholesome provisions, whether for meat or drink, without making the same fully known to the buyer, he shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than six months, or by fine not exceeding two hundred dollars.

"SECT. 2. If any person shall fraudulently adulterate, for the purpose of sale, any substance intended for food, or any wine, spirits, malt liquor, or other liquor, intended for drinking, with any substance injurious to health, he shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year, or by fine not exceeding three hundred dollars, and the articles so adulterated shall be forfeited and destroyed.

"SECT. 3. If any person shall fraudulently adulterate, for the

purpose of sale, any drug or medicine, in such a manner as to render the same injurious to health, he shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year, or by fine not exceeding four hundred dollars, and such adulterated drugs and medicines shall be forfeited and destroyed."

This act gives sufficient legal authority to prevent the evil. If it be carefully observed, and only those dealers who are properly qualified for their business, and are of known honesty and integrity, receive public patronage, and those of an opposite character are discountenanced, and instances of flagrant abuse prosecuted and punished, it may be reasonably supposed that the evil will greatly diminish.

XLIV.

WE RECOMMEND that institutions be formed to educate and qualify females to be nurses of the sick.

It is hardly necessary to commend the importance of good nursing in the cure of disease. Let a physician be ever so skilful, and prescribe his remedies with ever so much care and sagacity, if the nurse does not follow his directions, or if she neglects her duty, or performs it unskilfully, or imperfectly, or with an improper disposition, the remedies will be unsuccessful, and the patient will suffer; and perhaps life is lost as the consequence. On the other hand, let a physician of moderate capacity prescribe with ordinary skill, if his orders are carried into execution by a nurse, who understands, loves, and conscientiously discharges her duty, the patient is relieved, and life is preserved as the consequence. It is thus that bad nursing often defeats the intention of the best medical advice, and good nursing often supplies the defects of bad advice. Nursing often does more to cure disease than the physician himself; and, in the prevention of disease and in the promotion of health, it is of equal and even of greater importance. Many and many a life, which might have been saved, has been lost in the hands of quack nurses, as well as in those of quack doctors.

In consequence of the great ignorance which generally prevails in regard to the laws of health, and the causes and cure of disease, there are few females or others who are really capable of acting as intelligent nurses. Many, it is true, announce themselves as professional nurses, and many in more private