MEDICAL JOURNALS AND THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD
How the Medical Times Aids and Abets Quackery, with the Moral Support of Members of the Medical Profession
Two letters have been received, both from physicians. One comes from New York City and the other from Alexandria, Va. Each letter contained an advertisement of the Kellam Hospital, Richmond, Va., cut from the Medical Times. Here is the New York letter:
“To the Editor:—I am enclosing an advertisement clipped from the Medical Times. It seemed to me an especially flagrant example of what may happen in the absence of proper supervision of the advertising pages of a medical magazine. The condition would seem all the worse in this instance as among the ‘Board of Contributing Editors’ are listed men like Howard Lilienthal of New York and Almuth C. Vandiver, who is Counsel for the Medical Society of the County of New York. The Medical Times is sent to two of the physicians who live at this address without charge and without solicitation. Many advertisements of proprietary preparations are inserted in type indistinguishable from that of the body of the magazine and it is of course possible that its financial backing comes entirely from the manufacturers of these drugs.”
Fig. 1.—Photographic reproductions from the Medical Times. Do the gentlemen whose names appear in the list of the “Board of Contributing Editors” realize that they are lending an air of respectability to an otherwise disreputable business?
“To the Editor:—The statements made in the advertisement of the Kellam Hospital in the October number of the Medical Times are so out of the ordinary that I ask you to tell us something if you can of their institution and its methods of cure. Can such things as are stated in this advertisement be true? ‘Physicians Treated Free?’ ‘Endorsed by the Senate and Legislature of Virginia?’ What can all this mean to the sufferer from cancer? If true, let the whole world of sufferers know the glorious news.”
Collier’s paid its respects to the Kellam concern some time ago and we cannot do better than quote from its pages. Thus:
Fig. 2.—One way of drumming up trade in the “cancer cure” business! The Kellam Hospital sends letters like this to the postmasters of small towns asking these government officials to furnish it with what, in the parlance of quackery, is known as a “sucker list.” A delightful business, isn’t it? And this, gentlemen of the “Board of Contributing Editors,” is the sort of thing to which you are lending your influence and good names!
“Grief is the portion of the Kellam Cancer Hospital, of Richmond, Virginia, because in these editorials it has been grouped with other exemplars of the Great American Fraud. It offers the invariable and hollow mockery of testimonials and endorsements, which, as has been repeatedly shown, can be wheedled, browbeaten or bribed out of the victims of any form of quackery. It, of course, courts the fullest investigation, and desires that we send a representative to investigate whether its claims are not well founded. Unsuspected by the Messrs. Kellam, our representative has already investigated their claims, notably their statement that they are endorsed by the Legislature of the State of Virginia. Upon request for a copy of the endorsement they forwarded a weak subterfuge, and finally, on pressure, admitted that they could not produce the proof they had boasted. For their further consideration we present a brief parallel:
| FROM THE KELLAM CIRCULAR | FROM A KELLAM LETTER | |
| The Cancer is removed without the use of the knife or X-Ray ... No roots or fibers left; hence it can not return. | We do not claim to “cure them all.” We go further, and on our part, we agree to treat, free of charge, any patient who suffers a recurrence after having been treated by our method. |
“The italics are our own, but we cheerfully present them for elucidation to the Kellam Hospital. A little careful thought devoted to reconciling the irreconcilable may help them to forget their woe. Meanwhile, they make themselves out worse than they really are by pretending to withhold from the bitter need of humanity a true, non-surgical cure for cancer. If this were true; if, indeed, they had solved the problem which has baffled the greatest minds of modern science; if, having a genuine cure for the dreadful ailment which claims its increasing thousands of tortured victims yearly, they secrete their discovery for the sake of a few paltry dollars, then they are as cold-hearted as the sailors who pass within fair hail of the naked island on which some shipwrecked crew is starving, and keep their stony eyes on the compass. They have not even the excuse of the fanatical among the Christian Scientists who, denying the existence of pain, refuse to take measures to ease the cancer victim’s suffering even at the last. Human nature is seldom so callous.”
As for the Medical Times: This publication for years contained comparatively little advertising. Then it came into the hands of Romaine Pierson, who also owns the Practical Druggist. Mr. Pierson is not a physician and to him the medical profession is but a commercial problem. He is publishing a medical journal for the money there is in it, and for this he is not to be censured. Questions of advertising policy, in such circumstances, are determined on a commercial basis. When an advertising contract is submitted, for a product that physicians would know to be fraudulent, the question that arises is, “Can it be put over?” Manifestly, a medical journal published purely as a business venture would not dare long to fly in the face of the opinions of those from whom it received its support—its subscribers and contributors. If our correspondents will go through the advertising columns of the Medical Times they will find many, many other frauds, less cruel perhaps than the Kellam advertisement, but no less disreputable or discreditable to the medical profession.
After all is said and done, it is enlightened public opinion that is causing publishers of lay magazines and newspapers to eliminate fraudulent “patent medicine” and quack advertisements. Until the medical profession takes an equally enlightened stand, physicians may expect to be afflicted with such commercial medical journals as the Medical Times, the International Journal of Surgery, the American Journal of Surgery, American Medicine, and several other papers that are published primarily in the interest of the advertiser. When such journals as these find they cannot get a circulation among physicians so long as they carry advertisements similar to many now appearing in their pages, these advertisements will be eliminated, but not before. Many physicians are receiving such journals at a nominal price or, as one of our correspondents notes, free. The physician who permits such journals to come to his office must share with the paid subscribers the responsibility for the low standard of medical journalism.—(From the Journal A. M. A., Oct. 18, 1913.)
Two Physicians Express Themselves on the Ethics of Medical Journalism
After the preceding article was in type, we received, in the same mail, two letters that are so apropos that we reproduce them. The first was from a town in Illinois, and was dated October 11. Here it is:
To the Editor:—About two weeks ago, a representative of the Surgery Publishing Company, New York, N. Y., came to —— Ill. soliciting subscriptions for the American Journal of Surgery. Together with numerous others I subscribed—chiefly on the strength of the contributors whose articles appeared in the sample numbers shown by the agent.
Since receiving the first number (October) one look at the advertising pages has shown me why the subscription price for a year and a quarter is one dollar. Anasarcin, Tongaline, Cactina Pillets, Hagee’s Cordial of Ext. Cod Liver, Burnham’s Soluble Iodin, Papine, Phenalgine, Anusol, etc., etc.
I have written to the Surgery Publishing Company, telling them in no uncertain language that there is no room on my reading desk for such. Have you ever exposed this journal, and the attitude of our big, brilliant, eminent men in permitting their articles—presumably original—to fill space in such a journal? [Yes! The Journal, Dec. 16, 1911, pp. 2,000 and 2,013.] This letter is not for publication—at least not with name of city. Keep up the good work....
The other, dated October 10, follows:
To the Editor:—That little story about medical journal advertising and methods of obtaining paid-up subscribers, in this week’s Journal makes me blush (p. [422], this book). I am guilty. Unlike Dr. Genella, I swallowed the bait—but the bait was even more tempting in my case; the flattering “editor” offered me twenty-five subscriptions to distribute among my friends, all for an “abstract.” Thank goodness, I only accepted five subscriptions, but worse luck, I sent them to young men by preference. So I am a deep-dyed offender indeed. Extenuating circumstances affected my susceptibility somewhat, however. I have noticed that prominent men like Beverly Robinson, A. Rose, Tom A. Williams, Wayne Babcock, and Morris—the latter, at least, a really able man and a brilliant writer—contribute to these peanut journals occasionally. If they do, why not I? There’s nothing like being in big company, you know.
So far as I know, my “abstract” has not yet been published. On looking over the sample copy of this monthly I found an advertisement printed right in the list of contents—in fact, it was the second “original article” in the issue, as brave and respectable as you please! Then, with characteristic Hibernian impetuosity I got out my machine and pounded that editor a strong protest with a dire command not to use my “abstract” in his miserable organ. But I have never received the manuscript, nor any reply to my stern rebuke. I wish I had been cautious like Dr. Genella.
Wm. Brady, M.D., Elmira, N. Y.
—(From The Journal A. M. A., Oct. 18, 1913.)
The Responsibility of Physicians
The responsibility of medical journals for the continued existence of at least a part of the “great American fraud,” has been referred to in these pages many times. Within the past few weeks The Journal has called attention to the inconsistency of reputable physicians of high ideals lending their moral, and often financial, support to those medical journals whose advertising pages are a disgrace to the profession. Specifically, the Medical Times—originally a homeopathic medical journal—has been referred to, among others, as an example of this type of journalism. It must, however, be regarded simply as a type, for it is no better and no worse than many other medical journals. Several letters have been received on the subject, some of which we reproduce. The first one is from Dr. George G. Ross of Philadelphia:
“I was very much jarred on receiving the last issue of The Journal to find under the Propaganda for Reform an article concerning the Medical Times, among the list of whose contributing editors my name appears. I enclose you herewith a copy of my letter of resignation to the Medical Times. I have a very dim recollection of what occurred at the time that I was asked to give my name as a contributing editor. As I recollect it, however, at that time the journal was a respectable and ethical publication. I had been asked by a friend of mine to write an article giving my opinion of the effects of college athletics on undergraduates. This was at the time that Dr. Stokes had issued his order about athletics at Annapolis. I want personally to thank you and the committee for the exposure of this journal and for having drawn my attention to the fact that I was unwittingly aiding and abetting such a journal. I trust that if you have space in some future number of The Journal, you will do me the justice to publish all or part of this letter.”
Because he feels that he has “unwittingly been put in an unfavorable light,” Dr. James A. Babbitt, also of Philadelphia, sends The Journal a copy of a letter written by him to the editor of the Medical Times. Here it is:
“For reasons of which you are probably cognizant, I deem it advisable to resign from the board of contributing editors of the Medical Times, and desire that this resignation be accepted at once and my name not appear in further issues.”
What shall be done, asks Dr. Sidney Thompson of Humboldt, Tennessee, in such cases as the following? Says Dr. Thompson:
“In the Propaganda for Reform, in The Journal, October 18, 1913, in closing your article on ‘Medical Journals and the Great American Fraud,’ you say: ‘The physician who permits such journals to come to his office must share with the paid subscribers the responsibility for the low standard of medical journalism.’ Now I agree with you in everything you have said about the Medical Times, but what I want to know is how to keep such journals from coming into your office. The Medical Times has been coming to me for a number of years with repeated duns for the subscription price. I have written to them several times that I did not want the journal and never expected to pay for it, but still it comes. I have a vague recollection that I bit at an offer to send it three or four months free, not knowing what it was, but I never authorized them to enter my name as a regular subscriber.”
The simplest course in such a case as that described by Dr. Thompson, is to write on the unwelcome publication the word “refused” and either drop it in the nearest mail-box or hand it back to the postman. The courts have held that a person who continues to accept publications is legally liable for the payment of such publications. The postoffice department, however, has ruled that a magazine—either monthly or weekly—may not be sent at second-class rates for more than one year after the expiration of a bona fide subscription. At the expiration of that time, stamps must be affixed and the publications sent at third-class postal rates.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 1, 1913.)
Medical Journals and Sanatogen[AR]
We have frequently referred to the inquiries that are received by this office from newspaper and magazine editors asking for information about products whose advertisements they have been offered. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of accomplishing the good that such inquiries otherwise might lead to is the lack of uniform action on the part of the medical press of the country. A specific instance may be given. A layman wrote to a high-glass{sic} weekly magazine published in New York City protesting against an advertisement of Sanatogen which the magazine was carrying, and sending a reprint of The Journal’s article on this product. The advertising manager of the magazine in question wrote back that he had seen The Journal’s article, but had sought further information regarding the preparation from the editor of a medical journal in his city. The medical editor recommended that the magazine accept the Sanatogen advertisement, so the advertising manager said, and in view of this, the manager suggested that possibly the article published by the American Medical Association in its journal was inspired by some “personal prejudice.” Giving weight to the probability that the advertising manager went for his information to a source that he knew would be favorable to the acceptance of the advertisement, the fact remains that it is a disgraceful state of affairs when editors of medical journals will give vicious advice in matters on which they are supposedly competent to pass. The probability is, of course, that the medical journal whose editor was questioned contained the self-same advertisement that the lay magazine was carrying. And the advertising manager of the magazine was willing to accept—because such information coincided with his wishes—information that on its face must be biased, and rejected advice—that did not meet his approval—because of a purely supposititious “personal prejudice.” It is probably asking too much to expect advertising managers not to go to sources that are likely to be favorable for information about products whose advertisements are offered to them. But we have a right to expect that physicians, editors of medical journals, should no longer be participes criminis in the furtherance of the great American fraud. If our strictures on Sanatogen are unfair, if the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry rejected the product in mere pique, if the opinions of such men as Billings, Cabot, Hektoen and Lusk are to be brushed aside as “personal prejudice,” if this mixture of cottage cheese and glycerophosphates really is the marvelous product which its exploiters claim—then indeed not only have the editors of medical journals a right to praise it, but it is also their duty to proclaim these wonders in their editorial pages. If, on the other hand, this much-vaunted preparation is a very ordinary mixture sold at an extraordinary price, if indigent consumptives and others are being inveigled into spending dollars for a preparation whose food value could be duplicated for a few cents—then in the name of humanity and common decency let the editors of medical journals proclaim these facts, and not let their scientific judgment be blinded by the glitter of advertising contracts.—(Modified from The Journal A. M. A., Jan. 18, 1913.)