MEDICAL JOURNAL ADVERTISING
And Methods of Obtaining Paid-Up Subscribers
Time was when the postal authorities were lenient with publishers. The names of individuals who had ever subscribed for publications of a certain class were carried on the books indefinitely, whether they paid their subscriptions or not. This permitted a padding of the circulation figures. Of late years, however, the postoffice department requires publishers to have bona-fide paid-up subscriptions if they wish their publications to be carried at the low second-class rate. Certain medical journals have been hard put to it to get a circulation that would be at all attractive to the advertisers, on whose money they depend for continued existence.
Many and various have been the schemes devised whereby the dwindled circulation might be “boosted.” Subscriptions could not be given away because the postal laws forbade it. One ingenious method of obviating this difficulty is worked in this fashion: Dr. John Doe writes an article that appears in a reputable medical journal. A few days after its appearance, Dr. Doe receives a letter from the editor and publisher of a medical journal that is in need of a subscription list. He is told that the editor has read his article with much interest and would appreciate receiving from Dr. Doe a brief abstract of it. He does not expect the doctor to go to the trouble of making this abstract for nothing. He will, therefore, on receipt of the abstract credit Dr. Doe with three years’ subscription for himself or for one year for himself and one year for each of any other two doctors he may name. For every doctor that bites on this scheme the publisher increases his circulation by three copies and the federal officials are assured that they are paid-up subscriptions—not paid for in cash, it is true, but in “abstracts.”
All of this preliminary to a letter recently received:
To the Editor:—Enclosed find letter which speaks for itself. Now what I should like to know from you is the following: Is the Charlotte Medical Journal all it should be? Should a doctor contribute to a journal—thereby adding to its prestige and circulation—that carries questionable matter in the advertising pages? If the above journal is off color, does that act as a bar for good men to contribute?
Very truly yours,
L. J. Genella, M.D., New Orleans, La.
The letter which our correspondent encloses is on the stationery of the Charlotte Medical Journal and signed by the editor of that journal. Here it is:
“My Dear Doctor Genella:—I have just looked over an article of yours published in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal entitled ‘Clinical Studies in Pituitary Irritation, with Report of Case.’ I would be very glad indeed to have you send me a manuscript or article for the Charlotte Medical Journal. Your style of writing is very attractive.
“If you will send me an article for the journal, I will be glad to publish same and will place your name on my complimentary mailing list. Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of the journal.
“Of course I will expect the article to be typewritten.”
Whether or not this is a modification of the “abstract” scheme or an attempt to boost the circulation of the Charlotte Medical Journal are questions we shall not attempt to answer. As to the questions propounded by our correspondent, they have been answered many times in these pages. We turn to one of the recent copies of the Charlotte Medical Journal and examine its advertising pages. On one of the first we find Anasarcin, a product whose fraudulent character was described at some length in The Journal, May 4 and 11, 1907. On another page we find Tongaline, which has also come in for a fair share of attention (see The Journal, Sept. 23, 1906, and May 10, 1913). A little farther over we find a half-page advertisement of Bannerman’s Intravenous Solution, a nostrum first exploited as a “consumption cure” and now as a cure-all (see The Journal, May 31, 1913). Cactina Pillets (see The Journal, March 12, 1910), Hagee’s Cordial of the Extract of Cod-Liver Oil (see The Journal, Oct. 13, 1906), Burnham’s Soluble Iodin (see The Journal, March 28, 1908), Ecthol (see The Journal, March 13, 1909), Bromidia (see The Journal, April 21, 1906), Papine (see The Journal, April 29, 1911), Phenalgine—two advertisements (see The Journal, Jan. 13, and 27, 1906, and Jan. 27, 1912) and Sal Hepatica (see The Journal, March 26, 1910) are some more products which have attained unenviable notoriety but found a safe haven in the advertising pages of the Charlotte Medical Journal. Neither must we fail to refer to the advertisement of Duffy’s Malt Whiskey (see The Journal, Nov. 23, 1912), which looks thoroughly at home.
Does our correspondent—in fact, does any conscientious physician having the interest of scientific medicine at heart—want to do anything that will tend to perpetuate therapeutic fraud? Subscribing for or contributing to medical journals whose income is largely derived from nostrums that are as vicious as many of the “patent medicines” advertised in the daily press hampers the medical profession in its fight for honesty in therapeutics and renders largely abortive its fight against fraudulent “patent medicines.” So long as the accredited organs of the medical profession tolerate fraudulent “ethical proprietaries” in their advertising pages, just so long will the protests of physicians against the swindling advertisements of “patent medicines” in the daily press fall largely on deaf ears—and justly so.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Oct. 11, 1913.)
A Physician Places the Responsibility for Fraudulent Advertising Where It Belongs
“To the Editor:—The Journal has had much to say in recent years regarding the ethics, or lack of same, in advertising matter exploited by its contemporaries. It has been criticized by many for the stringency of its attack; it has been criticized by very few because it did not go far enough. Is it not about time to get to the root of the matter?
“In the last number [see p. [426], this book] dissatisfaction is expressed with the advertising policy of the Medical Times. Nothing finer! Go to it! But is the method of attack right? I have before me a sample copy of the American Journal of Surgery. Among other articles is one on diseases of joints and the bone marrow by a man very favorably known in Denver. He was ‘ethical’ enough to be accorded a place on the program in the Section on Medicine at Minneapolis. Another contributor from Baltimore remarks that he took a patient to the University Hospital. Can it be possible that Johns Hopkins is admitting men to its wards and clinics that are below par in professional morals? Another article appears from a well-known orthopedic man of Washington, D. C. Personally, I see very little to commend in the advertising columns of the American Journal of Surgery.
“I, who confess to a state bordering on youth, may be very wrong; but I believe that the trouble will be solved only when men who claim to have any professional distinction refuse to contribute to journals whose pages are not clean from cover to cover. Pardon the presumption, Mr. Editor, but were you ever tempted to print anything like this:
“‘Last week’s issue of the New York Medical Squall contains an article on “Duodenal Ulcer” by John Doe, the well-known Chicago surgeon. Dr. Doe doubtless knows as well as any one the disreputable character of the Squall’s advertising matter, but like most of our great men, is unable to restrain his appetite for journalistic publicity.’
“Physicians read medical journals because they contain literature that is worth while. Jump on your erring editorial brethren, Mr. Editor, but please remember that the problem of eliminating bogus advertisements will be solved when the so-called leaders of our profession show enough manhood to refuse literary support to publications whose columns are in disrepute. While castigating the little sinner, please don’t let the big sinner go scot free.
“Clinton E. Harris, M.D., Grinnell, Iowa.”
Dr. Harris sums up the situation correctly. No small degree of responsibility rests on the prominent members of the medical profession who lend their support either as subscribers for or contributors to those medical journals whose advertising pages are a stench in the nostrils of thinking physicians. Dr. Harris asks why The Journal does not condemn the advertising columns of the American Journal of Surgery. The Journal has done so more than once and in no uncertain terms, both in the Propaganda department and editorially. At one time it said:
“In circular letters and in an editorial announcement in its December issue, the American Journal of Surgery ‘features’—to use a newspaper term—some of the contributors to its January issue. The list comprises men who hold, or have held, high offices in the American Medical Association. Presidents, vice-presidents, chairmen, secretaries and members of sections of the Association—these are some of the men whose names appear as contributors to this nostrum-promoting publication. Is it any wonder that the proprietors of the American Journal of Surgery assume an attitude of indifference to the class of proprietary preparations which they admit to the pages of their publication?”
What was the result of The Journal thus directing the attention of its readers to the American Journal of Surgery? In the next issue of the American Journal of Surgery appeared a seven-column editorial tirade, entitled “An Unwarranted Attack on the President and Other Eminent Members of the American Medical Association and on the Leading Medical Journals of the Country.”
On many and various occasions has The Journal called attention to the very evils that Dr. Harris deplores, and for the benefit of those who care to look up the matter these references to some of the articles are appended:
“The Mote and the Beam,” editorial, Nov. 18, 1911.
“Activity or Passivity—Sympathy or Sacrifice,” editorial, Dec. 9, 1911.
“Cui Bono,” editorial, Dec. 16, 1911.
“Medical Journals and the Great American Fraud,” Propaganda Department, Dec. 16, 1911.
“The Profession Must Apply the Penalty,” editorial, Jan. 13, 1912.
“Fraudulent Advertising in High-Class Medical Journals,” editorial, Jan. 4, 1913.
“Demand Clean Advertising,” editorial, Jan. 4, 1913.
“Medical Journals and the Great American Fraud,” editorial, Jan. 18, 1913.
“A Good Principle to Apply,” editorial, May 13, 1913.
“Medical Journal Advertising,” Propaganda Department, Oct. 11, 1913.
“Medical Journals and the Great American Fraud,” Propaganda Department, Oct. 18, 1913.
“Medical Journals and the Great American Fraud,” Propaganda Department, Nov. 1, 1913.
“The Medical Times’ Advertisements,” Propaganda Department, Nov. 8, 1913.
In another letter on the same subject its writer says: “I think the time has arrived when we have a right to expect real leadership from the ‘big men’ of the profession.”—(From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 22, 1913.)