No. 1.

of ethpharmal medicines for physicians' prescriptions, have had the therapeutic properties of many valuable plants made known to them. The knowledge of these fine preparations has opened the way for a scientific study of therapeutics, something impossible without remedies of a definite and uniform strength. The manufacturer of ethpharmal preparations has put a very different face on plant medication. He has studied the plant in its relation to soil, climate, growth, ripening, proper time to gather to obtain the active principles in their best state, whereas before his advent, medicinal preparations were made from dried material, gathered by uninstructed people without any regard to the vitality of the plant, or the use to which it is to be put. Naturally there is a wide difference between an ethpharmal remedy, the result of the most careful selection as to quality of material and process of preparation, and one to which no special thought is given.

A good deal is said about the power of advertising to popularize a remedy. The doctor must remember that neither a drug nor any other article will continue to sell

through advertising alone. It must have merit to sustain it or it will inevitably pass out of use. The ethpharmal manufacturer succeeds only when his preparation is reliable. Advertising simply introduces a remedy to notice; it can not make it succeed. The same holds good in every department of life.

Shams.

The world is full of shams. It is amusing to see one politician abusing another, gravely telling us how bad the other man is, and how good he is. It is also amusing and disgusting to hear one doctor abusing another when both of them are doubtless very good fellows if they could manage a little more tolerance and breadth of mind. Most of all do these emotions move us when we see a medical journal claiming to work solely for the profession, and abusing another because it works for self. As if everybody who knows anything did not know that the two are one and the same. It is only when a man does not know how to work for himself in legitimate ways, when he suffers from mental obliquity of some sort, that he begins to play upon the prejudices of people to enlist their support.

The honest person, the good citizen, the successful professional man, works diligently for himself. He is not afraid nor ashamed to acknowledge it. Why should he make any pretense over it, since it is at once a necessity and an honor to him.

When a man persistently tells people that he is the only honest man in town, most of them take the hint and buy a watch-dog. A man named Shakespeare once voiced the universal doubt of one who protests too much. When a man spends all his time praising himself and abusing his opponents, it dawns upon most of us that he has an axe to grind, and we begin looking for it.

We always know the sham man; can put our finger on him every time. When we find a man accusing another of being rotten in all his views, we are apt to conIclude that he is in a nice mellow state himself, for we are all inclined to judge others by ourselves.

The doctor, of all men, should avoid shams; have nothing to do with them.

People who are constantly patting themselves on the back for their services to humanity, and vociferously calling on their kind to bear witness to their value and their own entire disinterestedness, are fools or knaves. In either capacity they do not benefit the doctor. The people who have really benefited humanity have done it silently, unconsciously for the most part, in the course of the day's work, for which they exact and receive compensation. The honest man neither poses nor pretends, he neither exalts nor depreciates his services. He charges a fair price, and tries to give value for what he receives.

Did you ever notice that the self-styled virtuous man is always growling at somebody? When any man constantly asserts that he has all the honesty and virtue there is going, look out for him. Especially look out for him when he tells you he is working for humanity. Every doctor knows that when he does his best for his patient he likewise does his best for himself, and this is true in all other vocations. Such is the reliable man in every department of life.

Individualism.

This is a day in which it has become necessary for those who love independence to fight for individualism. Gradually we have had imported into this country ideas of compulsion. It is sought to force people by law to do certain things which, in a free state, are left to their own volition. And this idea of compelling people to do as the leaders think is getting the ascendancy in all departments of life, contrary to the spirit of constitutional liberty. To such an extent is this so, that the time has come when every patriotic man must fight it.

Every man should be vigorously opposed to the centralization of power, whether it be in the medical profession or in some other department. To encourage individual thinking and enterprise should be the watchword. No man who loves his country or his profession should submit to the leadership of a few. Never let the machine control you in either politics, religion, medicine or business. Always oppose special legislation. In this way you

will help to purify politics from graft, and lighten the taxpayer's burden a little. We do not want any more laws to control somebody.

The United States owes its present proud position to the efforts of the individual. Let every man think for himself, and refuse to be led. Being led simply means slavery of the worst type. The safety and future of this country depend upon whether the people shall resolve to act and think as individuals instead of organizations, machines, etc.

Medical Laws.

Politicians are always wanting to pass new laws because the law is their stockin-trade. They work the people through their hopes and fears, ignorance and folly, and thus strengthen the machine. Every new law has to have somebody to tend its workings, and all these somebodies are subordinate to the will of the machine.

All these laws obstruct progress by handicapping and hindering a man's efforts to better his condition. When the doctor, living in a bleak New England State, finds it necessary to change his climate for one which is mild and dry, the first thing which confronts him is a medical law which bars him from earning a dollar until he has satisfied its requirements.

This same doctor may have been a successful practitioner for twenty years in his own community. The priceless knowledge of diseased conditions, and of drug indications, learned by observation and experience at the bed-side through these years counts for nothing. He must pass an examination similar to that required of the tyro fresh from medical school.

Such a condition of affairs is as intolerable as it is absurd.

Suppose you have practiced for ten or fifteen years in a small town, and now desire to remove to a city just across the State line and take up a specialty. Before you can do anything else you must put up a fee and take a trip to appear before the examining board of the foreign State to have your qualifications examined into.

The more a man thinks about the absurd situations and inconsistent practices brought about by passing fool laws

the more he is opposed to them all in principle. A diploma from a reputable college should entitle a man to practice anywhere under our flag. If there must be a law at all, it should at least be uniform, a national law, requiring the same examination for all graduates.

Laws do no one any good except the politician, whose game it is. The doctor, as an intelligent, thoughtful man, should use his influence to discourage the growing and unamerican tendency to appeal to law as a remedy for all evils. Such a state of affairs is the politician's heaven and the people's ruin. It has come to us from across seas, and we must do our best to fight and exterminate it. There are principles and precedents in plenty in the old common-law to afford people all needful protection. The special law, as a rule, is but a wedge to introduce some sort of graft. Fees for doing this, that and the other, things which have no sort of right to existence but for the quiescent folly of people who echo the politician's glib and partisan arguments.

How senseless to make a free grant of power to some outsider to tax us, to interfere in our business, to sit in judgment on our capacity, which has already borne the test of years of experience, and had set upon it, in the first place, the seal of a duly-qualified and authorized body.

Do medical laws keep down competition, discourage quacks? By no means. The quacks find an opening of some kind, a mantle of some sort to shelter them. Doctors whose competition would amount to anything are too well-established to remove elsewhere save for pressing reasons. Laws benefit no one but the politician. Why play his game?

Financial Success.

The majority of doctors are hard workers, giving freely of their time, strength and knowledge to their patients. Comparatively few, however, meet with as much financial success as the same amount of effort in other lines of business wins.

The reason is that the doctor does not govern himself by business principles.

For instance, the doctor would stand a much better chance of financial success if he would establish a uniform system of charges, neither too much nor to little, and charge all whom he serves alike.

The old system of charging one man less than a service is worth, and another more because one happens to have more money than the other is not fair to either party, and is essentially unbusiness-like.

The grocer does not vary the price of a barrel of flour or a firkin of butter according to the circumstances of his customers.

The doctor's services are commercial commodities, his fee-bill should represent their value to him, and be uniformly the same. If one man finds it hard to pay the doctor, and another finds it easy, that is none of the doctor's business. He has performed his part, and is entitled to his money. Of course, if he chooses now and then to perform an act of charity, that is another matter altogether. Charity and business do not mix. Most people will pay those who press for an early settlement, and let those who do not go without. If the doctor is a good business man, he will see that his claim is presented in good season, and the fact that his charges are fair and uniform will aid in collecting them.

Another thing. Do not run long accounts. Better sit up half the night over your books once a month. Know just where you stand all the time. If you can not get all your money at once, get part, and take a note for the rest. A man will pay a note quicker than an open account. If you want to make a small discount for prompt cash, that is good business. It should, of course, apply equally to all.

You are just starting a new year. Put your business on a commercial footing, and see how it works for twelve months. Establish a uniform fee bill so that people may know exactly what it will cost them for advice and attendance. Doctors do not altogether realize how many people are held back from consulting a physician by the fear that they are laying themselves open to extortion. These people make good patrons, for they are honest and pay their debts. Moreover, they are the cautious and careful classes,

who believe in prevention, but they fear that the professional advice is beyond their means.

It is more business-like and more profitable in the long run to have your services in demand at reasonable uniform rates than to do the most of your work for little or nothing, and then when you get a chance at a well-to-do man, charge him all that he will stand for, and so disgust and drive him off.

Think about this matter to some purpose. Do not let things run along haphazard. Be systematic and business-like. Most doctors work hard enough to have a handsome balance at the bank if they had their rights. And they do not have them because they do not go to work the right way to get them. And you need money. You can not get on in your profession without new books, new instruments, you want to take more journals, you want to take a trip now and then to pick up new ideas, a post-graduate course, perhaps; you want to buy a home for your family, send the children to good schools, fit your sons for careers.

Start the year right. Inaugurate a sound financial policy as a basis for prosperity, and see if it does not come your way.

Carry Sunshine With You.

By this we mean cultivate a sunshiny disposition so that you may carry its comforting radiance about with you. The doctor, especially, should never forget that happiness is just as contagious as measles. Therefore, he should put aside his worries and sorrows, invest life with the glow of optimism and enthusiasm. Melancholy faces and gloomy thoughts are the reverse of healthful. They should be excluded from the sick-room as carefully as poisonous vapors and noxious odors. We should be as careful to keep the moral atmosphere wholesome as the physical.

The cheerful word, the smile, the kindly, humorous gleam in the eye, the firm grasp of the hand, the clean little joke, no one can compute the good they do. In a few moments they change the whole face of things. All the hysteria which results from morbid brooding over fears