Legislation is the most obvious remedy, pending the enlightenment of the general public or the awakening of the journalistic conscience. But legislation proceeds slowly and always against opposition, which may be measured in practical terms as $250,000,000 at stake on the other side. I note in the last report of the Proprietary Association's annual meeting the significant statement that "the heaviest expenses were incurred in legislative work." Most of the legislation must be done by states, and we have seen in the case of the Hall Catarrh cure contract how readily this may be controlled. Two government agencies, at least, lend themselves to the purposes of the patent-medicine makers. The Patent Office issues to them trade-mark registration (generally speaking, the convenient term "patent medicine" is a misnomer, as very few are patented) without inquiry into the nature of the article thus safeguarded against imitation. The Post Office Department permits them the use of the mails. Except one particular line, the disgraceful "Weak Manhood" remedies, where excellent work has been done in throwing them out of the mails for fraud, the department has done nothing in the matter of patent remedies, and has no present intention of doing anything; yet I believe that such action, powerful as would be {010}the opposition developed, would be upheld by the courts on the same grounds that sustained the Post Office's position in the recent case of "Robusto." A Post-Office Report. That the advertising and circular statements circulated through the mails were materially and substantially false, with the result of cheating and defrauding those into whose hands the statements came; That, while the remedies did possess medicinal properties, these were not such as to carry out the cures promised; That the advertiser knew he was deceiving; That in the sale and distribution of his medicines the complainant made no inquiry into the specific character of the disease in any individual case, but supplied the same remedies and prescribed the same mode of treatment to all alike. Should the department apply these principles to the patent-medicine field generally, a number of conspicuous nostrums would cease to be pat-, rons of Uncle Sam's mail service.