Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Pharmaceuticals, Narcotics, Quackery, Charlatanry

    Discusses an advertisement in a 'Morning Paper', issued by the British College of Health on behalf of the Society of Hygeists, which quotes what it claims was William Shakespeare's anticipation of the 'Hygeian system of James Morison'. Draws attention to the advertisement's surprising claim that the poison used by the ghost of Hamlet's father (hebenon or henbane) was used in Morison's 'Universal Vegetable Pills'. Points out that if the advertisers mean to identify Morison's pills with poison then they are to be praised for 'great candour' and for giving the public grounds to exercise caution before using this treatment.