THE entire superstructure of fraud in medicine has for its foundations secrecy and mystery. Take away these elements, and that gigantic monument to human credulity—the patent medicine business—crumbles. Hence the frantic efforts of those who have built fortunes through the exploitation of nostrums in opposing every movement that would permit the public to know the drugs it is taking in patent medicines. A forgotten chapter in quackery is related by the Journal of the American Medical Association:— About a hundred and fifty years ago Mrs. Stephens in England claimed to have discovered a cure for “gravel and stone in the bladder and kidneys.” So skilfully did she call her wares that she deluded ignorant and educated alike into a belief in her discovery. Dr. David Hartley, physician and philosopher, collected and published reports of one hundred and fifty cases—his own among them—showing the value of Mrs. Stephens’s “cure.” Convinced that Mrs. Stephens had discovered a boon to suffering humanity, many urged her to make public the secret of her formula. Quack-like, she refused but—also quack-like—she offered to give up the formula for five thousand pounds ($25,000). Attempts were made to raise this amount by public subscription, but without success. In spite of the fact that many contributed to this fund, only about thirteen hundred pounds was raised. Parliament was then petitioned to make a grant, which in due time, it did. Mrs. Stephens got her five thousand pounds, and the public got her formula. The latter was published in the London Gazette. The “cure” consisted of eggshells, snails (shells and all), hips and haws, ash-keys, swine cress, and various other vegetables, all burned to a cinder, and the ash mixed with camomile flowers and fennel and other vegetables. But, alas! now that the public knew what was in Mrs. Stephens’s nostrum, it would have none of it. The cure fell into disrepute, and finally went the way of all such frauds, into oblivion. Dr. Hartley died of the disease of which he believed Mrs. Stephens had cured him. —Christian Endeavor World.