The publication by the British Medical Association under the title " Secret Remedies ; What they Cost and What they Contain ' '-of the results of a series of analyses of some of the most advertised of the many proprietary medicines put forward for the cure of disease, has perhaps done more than anything else to open the eyes of the public, the authorities, and the Legislature to the true facts in regard to the nature of such articles and of the enormous traffic that goes on in them. At the time of the publication of this second volume, a public inquiry into the matter by a Parliamentary Committee has just been opened, with a view to deciding on what alterations of the law are necessary or desirable. The present state of the law in regard to the matter, and of its administration, undoubtedly leave room for much amendment. But the surest enemy of quackery in this department is increased publicity in regard to the facts, and the recognition by the public of the great disparity that exists in many cases between the actual composition of many nostrums on the one hand, and the extravagant claims that are made for their curative powers on the other. As a further contribution to a general enlightenment on the subject, the British Medical Association publishes in the present volume the results of a further series of analyses of proprietary medicines which have been carried out for the purpose, together with extracts from the statements of the proprietors of the medicines. The number of those at present existing is so vast that it is only possible to deal with comparatively a few, and these have been selected, as a rule as being some of the most widely advertised or the most largely sold. It will be recognized at once that there is a very wide variation in the degree of exaggeration in the claims put forward. In a few cases - a small minority - the advertisements appear to consist of very little but an indication of the disorders for which the medicine is recommended.

At the other end of the scale there are nostrums put forward with the greatest assurance for even the most serious disorders, including consumption, smallpox, cancer, etc., etc., and in many cases one and the same article is asserted to be a cure for almost every disease to which the human body is liable. As a rule, the more extravagant the claims made, the more surely does the composition of the article, as revealed by analysis, show it to be of little or no value, if not even harmful, for the diseases named. Between these extremes, of the modest proprietary medicine - more or less of the nature of a harmless domestic medicine - on the one hand, and the most fraudulent quackery on the other, are to be found all gradations. The medicines described in this book have not been chosen as inclining more in one direction than the other, but include the various grades. From the facts stated the reader will be able to draw his own conclusions; it has not been necessary, as a rule, to express opinions on the articles described, a juxtaposition of the claims made and the facts shown by analysis being sufficient. The analyses here published have been made with the greatest care during the last few years.

Since it is open to the maker of a proprietary medicine to alter its composition at any time without warning (and very great alterations have been proved in some cases), it is, of course, possible that some of those described may have been altered since the analyses were made, though there is no reason to suppose that such has been the case.