any reasonable man be willing to risk his life, his money or his reputation, upon an article that has not been approved by proper medical authorities.
The proprietors of nostrums are extremely fond of advertising them in religious papers, and the publishers are too often induced to comply with such requests. They may perhaps intend to exercise a judicious discrimination, and advertise only such as they suppose to be useful. But such publishers ought to know that it is not their province to decide such questions—they belong exclusively to scientific medicine; and as the great body of educated physicians have inhibited every variety of nostrum, that decision should be respected. By all high-minded and honorable physicians every such nostrum, without exception, is regarded as a public nuisance. Such publishers ought to know, that the articles which they consent to advertise, are no better than thousands of others of the same sort. If they are inert, they are criminal impositions—and if they are active and powerful preparations, they are always liable to be injudiciously adminis-
