Schwalb's Electric Headache Powder. Severa's Headache & Neuralgia Wafers. Sherman's Headache Cure. Talbot's Headache Wafers. Ten Thousand Dollar Headache Tablets. Uncle Sam's Kola Headache Powder. Van Marter's Headache Powder. Walker's Headache Wafers. Weeks' Break Up a Cold Tablets. X L Headache Wafers. Wonder Cure Headache Powders. Yager's Handy Headache Tablets. Stark's Headache Powder. Tousley's Catarrh Powder. Vick's "Kadok" Headache Powder. White Seal Headache Powder. White & White Headache Powder. Wischerth & Dogier's Headache Pow der. Wright's Paragon Tablets. Young's Headache Powder. Zerbst's Little Giant Headache Remedy. FEMALE PILLS. By LYMAN F. KEBLER, M. D., Pн. D. Chief, Division of Drugs, U. S. Department of Agriculture. The publication of advertising matter inviting attention to means whereby conception can be prevented or abortion produced is specifically prohibited by law. Hence the manufacturers of drug products which are intended to be used for these purposes are careful not to state openly in their advertising literature the purposes for which their preparations are intended. They manage, however, to convey this information in such a way that those who are interested can readily understand. This is effected largely through the character of the name employed for the preparation, and through the agency of more or less guarded statements which appear upon the label or in the advertising literature. The names of most of these preparations are in themselves characteristic. They often contain the names of drugs which have come to be more or less widely known as emmenagogues or abortifiacients, for example, "Pennyroyal Pills," "Tansy Pills," "Cottonroot Pills." Others are so worded as to be equally characteristic: "Female Regulating Pills," "Female Regulator," "French Pills," "Female Pills," etc. Each of these terms indicate more or less clearly the purpose for which the preparation is intended. In addition more or less guarded statements appear in the adver tising literature. These preparations are rarely recommeded for the purpose mentioned above only, but are in most cases recommended for the cure of about all of the diseases to which the peculiar female organism is liable. Among these conditions, "Suppressed Menstruation" is given especial prominence. The following, taken from the advertising literature of some of the products in question, are given in illustration: "French Pills. Safe and Positively Infallible. Relieves Painful and Suppressed Menstruation," etc. Female Beans, Lion Drug Co., Buffalo. * * * Dr. Trousseau's Celebrated Female Cure, Dr. Trousseau Chemical Co., New York. Female Pills, Arch Pharmacal Co., San Francisco. Dr. Arthur's Pennyroyal & Tansy Pills, Palestine Drug Co., St. Louis. Dr. Bane's Female Pills, A. V. Bane Medical Co., St. Joseph, Mo. Dr. Cheeseman's Female Regulating Pills, Cheeseman Medicine Co., New York. Chichester Pennyroyal Pills, Chichester Chemical Co., Philadelphia. Fiske Clarke's Female Pills, Williams Mfg. Co., Cleveland. Sir. Clarke's Female Pills, Job Moses, 150 Nassau Street, New York. Dr. Constan's Female Pills, Fred'k K. Ingram & Co., Detroit. Dr. Conte's Female Pills, Dr. Felix Conte, Paris. Madam Dean's Female Pills, United Medical Co., Lancaster, Pa. De Koven's Comp. Pennyroyal Pills, Crescent Chemical Co., Elmira, N. Y. Du Choin's Female Pills. Ducro's Female Pills, Dr. L. Ducro, Paris. Duponco's Golden Female Pills. Duquoi's Female Pills, Dr. Du Quoi, Paris. Duquoin's Pennyroyal Pills. Golden Female Pills. Female Pills, Hillside Chemical Co., Newburgh, N. Y. John Hooper's Female Pills. Hooper's Green Seal Female Pills. Job Moses' Female Pills, 10 Spruce Street, and 150 Nassau Street, New York. King's Tansy Female Pills, King Medicine Co., Boston. La Franco Female Pills, La Franco Medical Co., 145 N. 8th Street, Philadelphia. La Rues French Tabloids. Lane's Female Pills, Allan Pfeiffer Chemical Co., St. Louis. Leslie's Pennyroyal Pills, Arthur Chemical Co., St. Louis. Lyon's Tansy Pills, Empire State Drug Co., Buffalo. Mnagogo Female Pills, New York & London Drug Co., New York. Monell's Female Pills, C. E. Monell, New York. Mott's Pennyroyal Pills, Williams Mfg. Co., Cleveland. Olive Branch Female Pills, Olive Branch Remedy Co., South Bend. Red Cross Tansy Pills, Norman Lichty Mfg. Co., Des Moines. Female Pills, S. B. Medicine Mfg. Co., Portland, Ore. Seguro Compound, Seguro Mfg. Co., 531 K Street, Sacramento. Stearn's Tansy Pills, New York & London Drug Co., New York. Dr. St. Jean's Female Pills, St. Jean Medical Co., 2004 Lexington Avenue, New York. Tansy Cotton Root Female Pills, New York & London Drug Co., New York. Dr. Thomas's Pennyroyal Pills, Arthur Chemical Co., St. Louis. Dr. Larue's Female Regulator. Severa's Female Regulator, W. F. Severa Co., Cedar Rapids, Ia. Watkins' Female Remedy, J. R. Watkins Medical Co., Winona, Minn. Magnolia Blossoms, Female Suppositories, South Bend Remedy Co., South Bend, Ind. Orange Blossom Female Suppositories, Dr. J. A. McGill Co., Chicago. DR. GEORGE M. KOBER, Chairman, Committee on Social Betterment DEAR DR. KOBER: WASHINGTON, June 15, 1908. While you verbally told me to "take my time," pressure of official duty has very much delayed formal reply to your letter, that the Committee on Social Betterment of the President's Homes Commission is very anxious to determine as far as possible the causes of juvenile delinquency, wife-desertion and non-support, with special reference to standards of living, intemperance, and other faulty environments, and should be very glad to receive from me the results of my observation and experience. Since there are many causes back of every act voluntarily elicited by the human will, it will be difficult to enumerate them all, even though the inquiry be limited, as you suggest, by special reference to standards of living. Yet certain broad conditions, rather than causes, may be indicated, improvement of which may be brought about by the exercise of the police powers of the State, in the interest of the general good of society and consequently of the individual also, for, as the President has often reminded us, in the long run we are all going up or going down together. Over twenty years' service as a volunteer helper of the unfortunate has, of course, given me some ideas relative to what the State might do to alleviate conditions, without destroying individual initiative. First, I was early impressed that homes in alleys foster vice and crime. Many citizens fear to enter the alleys even in daylight, the alleys are away or aside from the beaten lines of travel, and their isolation and comparative privacy encourage drunkenness and vagrancy and kindred evils, not only on the part of denizens but on the part of outsiders glad to avail themselves of the cover of the alleys in their licentiousness. No more efficient work could be performed for social betterment in Washington than to absolutely abolish all human habitations in alleys. It is a service of such transcendent importance to the whole city that it would even be worth while for the whole city to bear the burden of purchasing these alley properties and changing these properties into interior parks. Rents in the alleys range from $7.50 to $9 per month for four-room houses, without water in the house, though there may be water in the yard. The renters are drivers receiving from $5 to $7.50 per week as wages, or day-laborers, receiving from $1 to $1.50 per day, or hod-carriers, who, when members of the union, receive $2.25 per day, otherwise less. Of course, these work people lose wet weather and are subject to other losses of time from different vicissitudes, such as waiting for building material. Sometimes the renter is a foreigner who is a skilled artisan or stone mason, drawing $4 per day, whose earnings suggest a better environment. When his children are brought into court, charged with shooting crap or other disorderly conduct, with the companions made in the alleys, he is brought to a realization that the child is more than the dollar and readily agrees to get out of the alley into a home more suitable for an aspirant to American citizenship. We have Building Regulations designed to secure the proper amount of airspace for sleepers; yet, several families will sometimes crowd into these small alley houses, and this is not the limit, for a lodger at fifty cents a week will often be accommodated upon the floor of the kitchen in addition. The family income is almost invariably increased by the laundry work done in these overcrowded tenements by the women occupants. Think of them, therefore, as nuclei for the spread of contagion. These alley women prefer to do laundry work at their homes in the alleys, where there is the least constraint and the most gossip. Another serious evil is the commingling of the sexes. Children beyond the age of puberty are in the same room, often sleeping in the same bed. Sad are the results. I endeavor in a familiar way to make these people appreciate the situation. In cases of overcrowding, they are reminded that they would not quarter cattle in such cramped shelter, for fear of breeding fever in the animals, and yet the human is infinitely more valuable. Where both sexes are occupying the same sleepingroom, the mother or the father is asked if she or he would place in that room a lighted match near a can of gunpowder. Of course not, and they are shown the greater danger from mingling the sexes thus when the passions are strong and there is much ignorance, and they are reminded that under such conditions common decency becomes impossible. It is not unusual for married couples to have well-grown children sleeping in the same room with them, sometimes in the same bed. If the poverty be great, such are required to use at least cheap screens as an aid to decency. Sometimes a careful survey of the joint income of the members of the family demonstrates the ability to get additional room, or housespace, especially if expenditures for vicious indulgences are cut out. And it is possible to get, even for the rents paid for alley-houses, houses of similar size upon the streets of certain localities. The facts herein referred to are brought out in the court-hearings; but I early admonished the probation officers to make tactful inquiries along the same lines in their investigations, being careful, however, not to work at these people, but with them, in an endeavor to awaken ideals within the reach of the occupants of the houses in these hives of humanity. The home conditions animadverted on give rise to drunkenness, breaches of the peace, wife desertion, and much of the juvenile delinquency. Out of the habitations of the drunkard or the father who does not provide for those of his own household, go children not with the innocence or the buoyancy of childhood, but children suffering the cravings of hunger and familiar with scenes of debauchery. To satisfy hunger, they must either beg or steal. Often, too, these children find in the tumult of the street, where no one nags them, surcease from the bickerings of the home. The street becomes their most prized rendezvous, to be preferred to the discipline of the school, and, therefore, herein arises much truancy, and hence arises much of the so-called wanderlust, to be prefixed to the quarrelsome home. The non-support law is used to remedy these evils as far as practicable. The delinquent husband is made to go, on Saturday night, while he has his weekly wage in his pocket, to the nearest police-station and pay there a stipulated amount to be turned over through the clerk of this court for the support of his wife or children, or both. Either drunkenness or infidelity is an incident in these nonsupport cases, and so a pledge is also exacted to refrain from the use of liquor for the space of a year, and to cut out entirely the illegal intimacy, a short instruction being given upon the venereal diseases following upon such wrongful indulgences. During the first year of the operations of this court, $6,050.59 were thus disbursed to needy families. In the eleven months of this fiscal year, the amount was $19,235.36, in small sums weekly, from $1.50 up. There are now 236 families upon the relief-roll at the court. This has saved a burden to the taxpayers, minimized drunkenness, and made lazy men work to support themselves and families. Some of these men have improved so in an economic sense that they have stated they were glad to have been brought into the court. I may add that I wish you every success in your noble work for the betterment of conditions in the Capital of our country, which I am proud to say is my own native city. President Roosevelt will ever be remembered as the President who sought to make this city the embodiment of the highest ideals of American life. |