Parliament seemed to be taking its duties somewhat lightly when
the House was " counted out " on Friday duringthe Second Reading of the Medicines and Surgical Appliances (Advertisements) Bill designed to prohibit spurious claims- to the cure of certain diseases. As long ago as -1914 a Select Committee reported on the evils connected with the sale of patent medicines and quack remedies. The frauds practised on the public are the easier and the worse because their victims are usually poor people ignorant enough to believe the claims of the quack. The Bill -has the support of the medical profession- and the pharmaceutical and advertisement trades,- but -opponents of the Bill seemed to suspect them of a financial interest in its success, and to resent the rigid conservatism of the medical profession. But if the Bill is adequate, if not to destroy, at least to lessen the evil, it is hardly sufficient to argue there are some who stand to gain by it professionally or financially ; if it is inadequate, then some more efficient measure must be prepared or the evil be allowed to grow and flourish from pure incompetence to cope with it.
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