"The secret nostrum business in some of its phases has assiduously found its way into the medical arts, and physicians, pharmacists, and manufacturing houses, seem to have forgotten, to a certain extent, the obligations which they owe to the public. Medicine, in all its departments, must be practiced in accord with scientific, and professional requirement, or it will sink to the level of a commercial business. _The end of medical practice is service to suffering humanity, not the acquisition of money._ Money making is a necessary part of the practice of medical arts, not, however, its chief object. This fact must be kept in view always. Once lost sight of, and trade competition substituted for competition in serving the interests of the sick, medical and pharmacal practice will become an ignoble scrabble for wealth, in which the sick become victims of avarice and greed. Better set free a pack of ravening wolves in a community than to change the end of medical practice to a commercial one, for physicians and pharmacists would soon degenerate into quacks and charlatans, and take shameful advantage of the community for gain."
Where Dr. Stewart speaks of murder he probably refers to the sale of _abortofacients_.
Dr. Roe Bradner, of Philadelphia, in his report upon alleged cures for drunkenness before the Society for the Study of Inebriety several years ago, said:--
"There is a certain other class of so-called remedies, prepared sometimes by physicians and pharmacists, that do a great deal of harm. I allude to the 'non-secret proprietaries' that claim to publish their formulas, _but do not_. One in particular has made thousands, and likely tens of thousands, of _chloral drunkards_, dethroned the reason of as many more, besides having killed outright very many. It is impossible for any one to estimate the mischief that is being done by such remedies, and the physicians who recommend them."
Advertising is still the great hindrance in protecting the people from medical imposters. Professor E. W. Ladd, Pure Food Commissioner of North Dakota, says on this point:--
"These patent medicines, some of which are of merit, and others are only 'dopes,' or preparations intended to defraud the public, have been altogether too generally advertised and sold to the public. In many ways it seems a deplorable fact that by an unfair method of advertising the American people have come to be consumers to such an extent of a class of medicines, which, at times, are positively detrimental to health. In other instances the continued use of the product is liable to result in the formation of a drug habit which may lead to serious consequences.