No class of men have done more harm by giving certificates of cures by quack medicines, than clergymen. They are so situated in the discharge of their parochial duties, that they are apt to be drawn into the signing of such certificates. They hear the glowing statements recited by patients and their friends. They, of course, sympathize with the relieved sufferers. They do not sift and examine the statements, for it seems almost unfeeling to doubt. They often, therefore, give these statements full credence, and furnish the empiric with certificates. Certificates from such sources are highly prized, and are, therefore, eagerly sought for. But clergymen should consider what they are doing by this course. The facts which I have stated show, that by such acts they uphold a system of impositions, and help quackery to destroy the lives of their fellow men. The feeling which physicians manifest in regard to empiricism, is very commonly supposed to be prompted by self-interest. This is far from being true. It would not be at all for the pecuniary interest of physicians to have quackery suppressed; for it is continually furnishing them with patients, in whom disease has been created or aggravated by the use of empirical remedies. I trust that it is obvious to the reader, from the facts which I have stated, that the medical profession are right in the ground which they have for the most part maintained against secret and patent medicines. The rule which they have adopted, in regard to themselves, on this point, is thus given in Percival’s Medical Ethics: “No physician or surgeon should dispense a secret nostrum, whether it be his invention or exclusive property; for if it be of real efficacy, the concealment of it is inconsistent with beneficence and professional liberality. And if mystery alone give it value and importance, such craft implies either disgraceful ignorance or fraudulent avarice.”[8] This rule recognizes a very just distinction between inventions in medicine and all other inventions. As medicine has to do with such important interests as health and life, the principles of benevolence demand, that any invention or discovery in this art, should be promulgated without any hindrance. And this is the more necessary, because nearly all of the so-called _new_ medicines, put forth from time to time, have nothing new in them, and mystery alone gives them their value and importance in the eyes of the public. The claims which are set up for the great mass of popular remedies, blazoned forth in newspaper, pamphlet, almanac, and handbill so profusely, are gross impositions; and an exposure of the formulas, according to which these medicines are compounded, would show them to be so.[9]