The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

A very salutary measure was adopted during the course of the last fortnight at Paris. The King has given full authority to the Royal Society of medicine, established in that metropolis, to examine all quack medicines, and to permit or refuse circulation of them. The inventor of a remedy, by this regulation (without divulging the secret of the composition) is ordered to send specimens of his nostrum not only to the Fellows of the Royal College, but to one of the Faculty in every great town in the kingdom. By these means the efficacy of the medicine will have an impartial trial; and if it is not approved of, the proprietors and druggists are forbid to advertise them in the public papers, or sell any in a private manner on pain of paying a fine of 1000 livres, for each offence, which is to be applied to the use of the hospital. In France, where quackery prevails more, if possible, than in this country such an ordinance will prevent the unhappy, from being imposed on by the credulity of the people, and add to the character of the Monarch, from his benevolent attention to the health of his subjects.