objectionable language and illustrations, so that all of any family may
study and use it with profit; it must frequently warn of dangers ahead and
urge the summoning of professional skill promptly, for there are many
cases requiring the services of experienced physicians and surgeons in
their treatment; it should advise remedies readily obtainable, as well as
those for which long journeys to a drug store are required; and finally
the book should be reasonable in price that those who most need it can
afford to own it.

Need of Brevity.

The facts of hygiene and therapeutic measures are widely scattered through
medical literature, and extend over hundreds of years of time. Many
volumes have been written on diseases of the eye, the heart, liver, and
stomach, brain and other organs, to understand which requires special
technical education. It would be the height of folly to present these
discussions to the laity in their original form, hence the necessity for
condensation and presentation of the needful facts in the language of the
people in whose interests the book is printed. In a book of fiction there
may be need for useless verbiage for the sake of "making pages," but facts
of vital importance and usefulness in our daily welfare need to be well
boiled down and put into shape for ready reference. This has been done in
"Mothers' Remedies" and I think it quite fulfills the ideal I have
outlined above.

The title is rather odd upon first seeing it, but the most plausible when
you become acquainted with its import. It surely becomes the best friend
of the whole family. "It does not turn its back upon us in times of
adversity," but cheerfully answers a thousand and one questions of vital
importance to the household. In the hour of distress, when illness or