Some years ago, so goes a story familiar in the drug trade, the general agent for a large jobbing house declared that he could put out an article possessing not the slightest remedial or stimulant properties, and by advertising it skillfully so persuade people of its virtues that it would receive unlimited testimonials to the cure of any disease for which he might choose to exploit it. Challenged to a bet, he became a proprietary owner. Within a year he had won his wager with a collection of certified "cures" ranging from anemia to pneumonia. Moreover, he found his venture so profitable that he pushed it to the extent of thousands of dollars of profits. His "remedy" was nothing but sugar. I have heard "Kaskine" mentioned as the "cure" in the case. It answers the requirements, or did answer them at that time, according to an analysis by the Massachusetts State Board of Health, which shows that its purchasers had been paying $1 an ounce for pure granulated sugar. Whether "Kaskine" was indeed the subject of this picturesque bet, or whether it was some other harmless fraud, is immaterial to the point, which is that where the disease cures itself, as nearly all diseases do, the medicine gets the benefit of this _viæ medicatriæ naturæ_--the natural corrective force which makes for normal health in every human organism. Obviously, the sugar testimonials can not be regarded as very weighty evidence. Testimonials for a Magic Ring. There is being advertised now a finger ring which by the mere wearing cures any form of rheumatism. The maker of that ring has genuine letters from people who believe that they have been cured by it. Would any one other than a believer in witchcraft accept those statements? Yet they are just as "genuine" as the bulk of patent medicine letters and written in as good faith. A very small proportion of the gratuitous indorsements get into the newspapers, because, as I have said, they do not lend themselves {069}well to advertising purposes. I have looked over the originals of hundreds of such letters, and more than 90 per cent, of them--that is a very conservative estimate--are from illiterate and obviously ignorant people. Even those few that can be used are rendered suitable for publication only by careful editing. The geographical distribution is suggestive. Out of 100 specimens selected at random from the Pierce testimonial book, eighty-seven are from small, remote hamlets, whose very names are unfamiliar to the average man of intelligence. Only five are from cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. Now, Garden City, Kas.; North Yamhill, Ore.; Theresa, Jefferson County, N. Y.; Parkland, Ky., and Forest Hill, W. Va., may produce an excellent brand of Americanism, but one does not look for a very high average of intelligence in such communities. Is it only a coincidence that the mountain districts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, recognized as being the least civilized parts of the country, should furnish a