Munyon’s Kidney Cure has no equal. It cures pain in the back, loins, or groins, from kidney disease, puffy and flabby face, dropsy of the feet and limbs, frequent desire to pass water, scanty urine, dark-coloured and turbid urine sediment in the urine, gravel in the bladder, and too-great a flow of urine. The pilules were found to vary much in size, the average weight being 0·6 grain. Analysis showed them to consist of ordinary white sugar; no trace could be detected of any alkaloid or other active principle, or of any medication. The sugar was determined quantitatively, and found to be just 100·0 per cent. of the weight of the pilules. Estimated cost of contents of bottle, one thirty-fifth of a penny. CHAPTER VIII. DIABETES. Diabetes, being a disease which runs on the whole a steady course unaffected by anything but diet, does not afford a promising field for the use of drugs; but as drowning men catch at straws, patients who have been told that they are incurable are naturally disposed to try any remedy that holds out a prospect of cure or relief. Although there are a good many proprietary remedies for diabetes, few seem to have a large sale, but such as exist are pushed by the usual pretensions set forth in advertisements and circulars. Every one must admit that few things can be more cruel than to trade upon the hopes and fears of sick people or to sell them worthless remedies with the positive assurance of cure. Yet this is what is done by the sellers of quack remedies, and the Inland Revenue pockets the patent medicine duty without a blush. Some account is here given of two much advertised preparations—Vin Urané Pesqui and Dill’s Diabetic Mixture. It may be objected that Pesqui’s Uranium Wine is not a secret remedy because it is said to contain uranium nitrate, pepsin, and “other appropriate elements” added to “old Bordeaux wine”; but uranium nitrate is a drug well-known to the medical profession, and whatever may be its properties it is not a cure for diabetes. There is no trustworthy evidence that it has ever cured a single case, and the most that can be honestly said of it is that patients have improved in general health while taking it, although it has not influenced the amount of sugar. Yet we are told in this advertisement that Pesqui’s Uranium Wine “positively cures sugared diabetes provided it is resorted to at an early stage and used during a sufficient length of time.” Dill’s Diabetic Mixture appears to consist mainly of extract of hydrastis, a well-known drug, which amongst the many virtues claimed for it has never been shown to possess any influence over diabetes; yet the advertisement says that Dill’s Diabetic Mixture is the “only known remedy for this deadly disease”! There is another triple nostrum for diabetes which, on examination, was found to consist of tablets of aspirin, unsweetened lime-juice, and a pink powder composed of sodium sulphate flavoured with oil of