As was to be expected, the articles examined have little or nothing in common. In the case of diseases for which the ordinary treatment involves the use of certain specific drugs, proprietary medicines are usually merely varying compounds of those drugs; thus, of the advertised cures for epilepsy, analyses of which are given in the next chapter, the essential ingredient in all but one is an alkaline bromide. But in cancer the would-be maker of a proprietary “cure” has no such accepted treatment to guide him, or to restrict the free range of his fancy in selection of ingredients; it is probable that some of the “remedies” here described were inspired by the fact that some apparent improvement followed their fortuitous use in some cases, _post hoc_ having been assumed to mean _propter hoc_; the first to be described, however, can hardly rest even on this basis. It is a colourless liquid, containing a trace of sediment; the odour is that of alcohol, though very slightly vinous. Fractional distillation showed the presence of about 40 per cent. of alcohol; on complete evaporation, a trace (0·02 per cent.) of dry residue was left. This residue was free from any alkaloid, and its behaviour with reagents gave no indication of any other active principle; it agreed in character with the “extractive” found in spirit that has been kept in a wine-cask. After removing the alcohol, the liquid was perfectly tasteless. This “remedy” is thus very simple in nature, consisting merely of diluted and slightly impure alcohol. Its composition brings to mind the analysis published some years ago of a so-called electric fluid, or “electricity,” for the cure of cancer, which was taken up by a certain well-known journalist and boomed by him in the pages of the review which he edited; many marvellous cures were ascribed to it, but examination showed that although it was sold at several shillings per fluid ounce, it consisted of plain water. Notwithstanding the exposure, the article is at present quoted in wholesale lists, and is therefore presumably still in demand. The cost of the “medicine” we are now dealing with is of course considerably greater than the cost of plain water, but this fact will be but small consolation to the victim who derives as little benefit from the one as from the other.