Philadelphia, March 20, 1897. <h3>To the Editor:</h3> —Probably no one knows better than a medical editor that eternal vigilance is the price of other things beside liberty; and nowhere is vigilance more essential than in guarding against the schemes of the manufacturer of proprietary preparations. TheJournal, with its settled and well understood policy of refusing reading notices, offers an attractive field in which to spread advertisements disguised as regular scientific communications. Many of the weekly medical journals of the Eastern cities and Europe, lend their aid to such schemes, some of them, perhaps, by inadvertence, others apparently with full intention. But this will not justify theJournal of the American Medical Associationin lowering its standard of requirements in the least. It is perhaps impossible to judge when the eulogy of a special preparation is entirely sincere on the part of a writer, whose judgment and originality may be