no agency to refute the megaphone exploitation of the fraud. What opposition there is would naturally arise in the medical profession, but this is discounted by the proprietary interests. The Doctors Are Investigating. "You attack us because we cure your patients," is their charge. They assume always that the public has no grievance against them, or, rather, they calmly ignore the public in the matter. In his address at the last convention of the Proprietary Association, the retiring president, W. A. Talbot of Piso's Consumption Cure, turning his guns on the medical profession, delivered this astonishing sentiment: "No argument favoring the publication of our formulas was ever uttered which does not apply with equal force to your prescriptions. It is pardonable in you to want to know these formulas, for they are good. But you must not ask us to reveal these valuable secrets, to do what you would not do yourselves. The public and our law-makers do not want your secrets nor ours, _and it would be a damage to them to have them_." The physicians seem to have awakened, somewhat tardily, indeed, to counter-attack. The American Medical Association has organized a Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry to investigate and pass on the "ethical" preparations advertised to physicians, with a view to listing those which are found to be reputable and useful. That this is regarded as a direct assault on the proprietary interests is suggested by the protests, eloquent to the verge of frenzy in some cases, emanating from those organs which the manufacturers control. Already the council has issued some painfully frank reports on products of imposingly scientific nomenclature; and more are to follow. What One Druggist Is Doing. Largely for trade reasons a few druggists have been fighting the nostrums, but without any considerable effect. Indeed, it is surprising to see that people are so deeply impressed with the advertising claims put forth daily as to be impervious to warnings even from experts. {009} A cut-rate store, the Economical Drug Company of Chicago, started on a campaign and displayed a sign in the window reading: [IMAGE ==>] {009} PLEASE DO NOT ASK US What is ANY OLD PATENT MEDICINE Worth? For you embarrass us, as our honest answer must be that IT IS WORTHLESS If you mean to ask at what price we sell it, that is an entirely different proposition. When sick, consult a good physician. It is the only proper course. And you will find it cheaper in the end than self-medication with worthless "patent" nostrums. This was followed up by the salesmen informing all applicants for the prominent nostrums that they were wasting money. Yet with all this that store was unable to get rid of its patent-medicine trade, and to-day nostrums comprise one-third of its entire business. They comprise about two-thirds of that of the average small store.