2. The second class of quack medicines are those which are supposed to act upon the system slowly, producing a change in its general condition. The general term _alterative_ may be properly applied to them. The various preparations of sarsaparilla belong to this class. The same remark can be made in regard to these that was made in relation to the great variety of popular pills. They are all very much alike, although the proprietor of each claims for his preparation that it is entirely new in its combination, and that it is pre-eminently successful. A single fact, which came to the knowledge of the author, will show what kind of imposition some of these discoverers of _new_ preparations of sarsaparilla practice upon the community. Twenty years ago, Carpenter’s Fluid Extract of Sarsaparilla had a high reputation, both with the profession and with the public. No secret was made of its composition. A student of medicine copied the formula. A few years ago he furnished an apothecary with this formula, who forthwith came out before the public with what purported to be a _new_ preparation of sarsaparilla, which, by the usual machinery of quackery, obtained extensive popular favor, and made a fortune for the apothecary. His preparation was not a new one, but was made according to Carpenter’s formula, with some slight additions to alter the taste and the appearance of the medicine. The sale of this once famous preparation of sarsaparilla has, with that of its rivals, almost, if not wholly gone by; and others are now the candidates for fame and _money_ with their entirely _new_ preparations. 3. As consumption is the most common of all chronic diseases, there is a very large class of remedies which are supposed to act especially upon the lungs. Each one of these is claimed by its proprietor to be a _certain cure_ for this formidable disease. They are generally combinations of articles which are in common use among physicians in affections of the lungs. In the indiscriminate use to which they are put by the empiric, while they benefit some cases to which they _happen_ to be appropriate, in the great majority of instances they undoubtedly do harm; and in the forming stage of many cases, they fasten the disease irrecoverably, when a judicious and discriminating treatment might have saved the patient. These nostrums, therefore, add much to the mortality of consumption in the community.