ment of 1907. This report gives an analysis of most of the extensively advertised medicines. Doan's Backache Kidney Pills are said to be made of oil of juniper 1 drop, hemlock pitch 10 grains, potassium nitrate 5 grains, powdered fenugreek (Greek hay) 4 grains, wheat flour 4 grains, maize starch 2 grains. The report says: "The stuff is the cheapest kind of skin-plaster made up into pills." The seeds of fenugreek are used mainly for poultices. Doan's Dinner Pills contain two drastic purgatives, podophyllin and aloin. Both of these are dangerous drugs. Aloin frequently produces hemorrhoids (piles). The British Medical Journal says that the material in forty of the Kidney Pills and four Dinner Pills would cost one English halfpenny (one cent).
Vitae-Ore is given as consisting of ordinary sulphate of iron (green vitriol) to which a little Epsom salts has been added. Munyon's Kidney Cure, which claims to cure Bright's disease, gravel, and all urinary diseases, is given as composed entirely of sugar. Dr. Williams' Pink Pills are said to be an iron pill much the same as the ordinary Blaud's Pills which are sold in drug-stores for half, or less than half, the price of the proprietary article. (Iron is said by recent investigators to be very injurious to the stomach.)
The Committee on Pharmacy of the American Medical Association has analyzed many proprietary medicines; from their reports the following analyses are taken. "Health Grains," which are claimed to be a remedy for "Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Nervousness, etc.," were found to consist of 87.50 per cent, of coarse
