In 1883 Mrs. Mary Towne Burt, President of New York State W. C. T. U., in her annual address, suggested that a department of work be created to endeavor to induce physicians to not prescribe alcohol, unless in such cases as allowed of the use of no other agent. Mrs. (Rev.) J. Butler, of Fairport, was the first superintendent of this department, which was named, "Influencing Physicians to not Prescribe Alcoholics as Medicines." The National W. C. T. U. adopted the department in 1883, but soon dropped it. In 1895 it was reinstated and Mrs. Martha M. Allen, New York's superintendent, was made national superintendent. In 1905 the name of the department was changed from Non-Alcoholic Medication, which it had borne for fifteen years, to Medical Temperance. The objects of this department of work are: 1. To inform the public of the objections to the medical use of alcoholic drinks now held by many successful physicians. 2. To show the dangers in the home-prescription of alcohol and other powerful drugs. 3. To expose fraudulent and dangerous proprietary and "patent" medicines and liquid "foods," the main ingredients of which are alcohol and morphine. 4. To use persuasion with publishers of newspapers and magazines against fraudulent medical advertising. Also to seek legislation which shall hinder such advertising. 5. To endeavor to win the attention of physicians who prescribe alcoholic liquors to the teachings of great leaders in their profession who have abandoned such practice. 6. To bring to the attention of nurses the same teachings, and to seek their co-operation in education against the self-prescription of alcohol. 7. To work for legislation which shall correct the evils of the whisky drug-store, the whisky-prescribing doctor, and the dangerous "patent" medicine. 8. To gather the opinions upon alcohol of well-known physicians who do not use it, and publish them. This department originated the public agitation against injurious and fraudulent "patent" medicines which later was so ably carried on by _Collier's Weekly_, and the _Ladies' Home Journal_. That its early work in this direction was not better known to the general public was due to the fact that religious as well as secular papers were reaping large revenues from the advertising of these nostrums, and consequently refused to publish anything which might injure the trade. Indeed, in accepting some of this advertising, newspaper managers had to sign a contract that they would not publish any reading matter opposed to the nostrum business.