-------------------+---------------------------+------------------- Name. | Address. | Ailment. -------------------+---------------------------+------------------- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------+---------------------------+------------------- Please return to The Weidhaas Hygienic Institute. Some time ago a firm of pharmaceutical chemists in a provincial town received a postcard from a company which offered 5s. for the name of any patient suffering from diabetes, pointing out that “it is money easily earned.” The pharmaceutical chemists expressed indignation at the attempt to bribe them to commit a breach of confidence, but such a request might not be so regarded by a patient, more especially if the advertiser lays great stress upon his benevolent motives, and his anxiety to benefit as many persons as possible. But although this letter-writing system with its paraphernalia of biographies of the discoverer, typewritten personal letters, free coupons and guarantee bonds is much in vogue, there are other nostrums advertised in the old-fashioned way and sold at the familiar price of 1s. 1½d. for a small bottle. Among these are some old preparations for coughs, for which more emphatic claims as remedies for consumption have been made of late years. The result of the analysis of two of these will first be given. CONGREVE’S BALSAMIC ELIXIR. This preparation, advertised from an address in London, is sold in bottles, price 1s. 1½d., 2s. 9d., 4s. 6d., 11s., and 22s. The 2s. 9d. bottle contained 1⅖ fluid ounces, the 4s. 6d. bottle contained 4 fluid ounces. On the outer package was to be read: Congreve’s Balsamic Elixir. Has had a World-wide Reputation for 80 years as the Best Remedy for Consumption, also for Asthma, Chronic Bronchitis, Coughs, Colds, and Whooping cough. Safe and Effective. Free from any poison. The following extracts are from a circular enclosed with the bottle: In the most obstinate attacks of Asthma, which have threatened speedy suffocation, when the sufferer, harassed by excessive coughing, has laboured dreadfully for breath, with an acuteness of agony not to be described, this Balsam has restored the patient to health, after the medical practitioner had abandoned the usual means in despair. In Pulmonary Consumption, the best remedy is this Balsamic Elixir, as most unquestionable Testimonials prove. It has been successfully prescribed in Consumptive cases regarded as hopeless by the first physicians.