“One at night, one night and morning, or, in severe cases, one three times a day. Gradually decrease the frequency of the dose as improvement permits.” According to a leaflet sent out with samples by the L. D. Johns Company, the company is capitalized for $500,000, divided into 50,000 shares at $10 each; these shares are sold to those physicians who will agree “to prescribe the tablets at every suitable opportunity, to introduce them to other physicians” and “to promote their sale in every ethical way!” If the list of physicians’ names and addresses which the company sends out as comprising the eastern stockholders is to be relied on, it would seem that many medical men are promoting their sale. In prescribing it is, of course, “necessary to specify ‘Dr. Johns’ Tablets No XXX (_Original bottle_).’” As the name is on the bottle, it is not unbelievable that, as the company says in its prospectus, because of “our method of advertising, a large and very profitable business is being created.” That the L. D. Johns Company expects to profit by the self-drugging which this method of prescribing fosters is evident: “Physicians not stockholders in this company suffer from the continual refilling of their prescriptions and from the recommendation of the _preparation prescribed by patients_ to others. [Italics ours.--Ed.] Our stockholders _benefit_ by the refilling of their prescriptions and by these recommendations.” Put baldly the case amounts to this: Physicians who prescribe “Dr. Johns’ Tablets” not only are likely to foster self-drugging, but they will reap dividends therefrom. Truly a nice business to be in! While Bell & Company and the L. D. Johns Company are said to be entirely distinct, they are to be found at the same address at Orangeburg, New York, and as will be seen, the officers of the two companies are more or less related. BELL & CO. L. D. JOHNS CO. _President_ John L. Dodge _President_ _Secretary_ Geo. C. Tennant _Vice-President_ _Vice-President_ Chas. B. Smith _Secretary and Treasurer_ EXPLOITING THE PROFESSION