THE ARMY AND NAVY MEDICAL RECORD

A Fraudulent Publication Whose Editorial Opinions Are for Sale

Whenever a business assumes certain proportions, subsidiary businesses spring up to cater to the needs of the larger enterprise. For some years the nostrum business has grown so large that it has furnished a more or less precarious life for many individuals who have catered to it. There are, for instance, men whose trade it is to obtain testimonials; others, claiming a long string of imposing degrees, will furnish fake reports and bogus analyses; still others issue at irregular intervals publications with high-sounding names which sell editorial indorsement to the products of concerns such as are willing to pay the price asked. “Journals” of this type have been called to the attention of our readers at different times; the New York Health Journal and the United States Health Reports come to mind at this moment. Both of these had their day and died a natural death, as all such publications must when once the public is cognizant of their true character.

TWO LETTERS

More recently the attention of The Journal has been called to a publication calling itself the Army and Navy Medical Record. A physician in the South sends a letter he has received from the Army and Navy Medical Record reading as follows:

“We have had many favorable reports reach us relative to your most excellent institution, and, as you are doubtless aware, we come in direct contact with a large number of Army and Navy and other government attachés who have sons that they desire to provide with a medical education combined with the higher course included in your up-to-date laboratory methods and the sciences incidental to clinical medical practice.

“If you will regard the proposition as confidential, we will agree to carry a one-fourth page advertisement of your university at the nominal rate of $38 per year, provided this amount is forwarded in advance at the time copy is furnished; and we will further promise to editorially indorse and recommend your school and its methods without qualification or exception. [Our italics.—Ed.] This article you should be able to use (and are authorized to do so) after publication for advertising purposes.

“We will also be able, and are willing, to furnish you with a desirable list of probable candidates from time to time.

“Kindly let us hear from you at once, if interested, and oblige,

“Yours with best wishes,
“The Army and Navy Medical Record,
“Arthur G. Lewis, Managing Editor.”

The physician to whom this was addressed made a notation on the letter to the effect that “this looks crooked.” A few weeks later, Dr. V. C. Vaughan, dean of the University of Michigan, Department of Medicine and Surgery, sent in a letter from the Army and Navy Medical Record which he had received in his official capacity at the university. Here is the letter; again the italics are ours:

“We are gratified to advise you that in our efforts to select a strictly ethical and high-grade institution of medicine that this magazine could consistently indorse and recommend, we have decided on the University of Michigan, Department of Medicine and Surgery, as the institution in your territory to whom our special publicity concession will be made this year.

“You are doubtless aware that we come in direct contact with a very large number of Army and Navy and other government attachés, also physicians in private practice who have sons that they desire to provide with a medical education, combined with the higher courses included in your up-to-date methods.

“For personal reasons we are particularly anxious to favor your institution, and frankly believe that we can prove of material service to you. The special proposition, to be regarded by you as strictly confidential, is that we will publish a full one-half page announcement of your institution for the term of one year, you to merely pay a nominal expense charge of $38 for the year’s service. As our regular rate is $125 per annum for this service, the necessity of regarding the matter between ourselves is apparent. [Transparently so.—Ed.] We further propose, without expense to you, to editorially indorse and recommend your institution and its methods without qualification or exception. An electrotype illustration may be used, without charge.

“It is important, however, that we hear from you promptly. Awaiting your immediate reply, we are, with best wishes,

“Yours faithfully,
“The Army and Navy Medical Record,
“Arthur G. Lewis, Managing Editor.”

Dr. Vaughan, in forwarding the matter to The Journal, wrote that on receipt of the offer just given, he “was uncertain whether its writer was a knave or a fool.” After inquiring into the matter somewhat thoroughly, he concluded that “the managing editor of the Army and Navy Medical Record is both a knave and a fool.”

THE ARMY AND NAVY MAGAZINE

The Journal had the Army and Navy Medical Record under investigation before these two letters were received and, as a result, the following facts seem to be pretty well substantiated. Herbert C. Lewis, with his brother, Arthur G., conducted from Washington, D. C., a publication called the Army and Navy Magazine. In The Journal’s nostrum file there is a booklet put out by the Renova Distributing Company describing the wonderful virtues of its product, “Anti-Jag,” which, as its name might intimate, is a “liquor cure” of the fake variety. One page of this booklet is given over to what purports to be “A Letter from a Great Magazine Editor.” The letter is dated June 19, 1900, from Washington, D. C., and says that “the editor of the Army and Navy Magazine takes pleasure in stating that from his own personal knowledge he has found ‘Anti-Jag’ to be one of the most reliable medicines ever introduced for the permanent cure of drunkenness.” And more to the same effect. The letter is signed “Herbert C. Lewis, editor.”

The publishing offices of the Army and Navy Magazine are at 606 F Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. The building at this address is known as the Baltic Building. Herbert C. Lewis is said to be a printer by trade.

The Army and Navy Medical Record seems to have been started within the last few months by Arthur G. Lewis. It does business from two addresses, the Baltic Building, Washington, D. C., and the Maple Villa Sanitarium, Hammonton, N. J. Lewis is said to have purchased the Maple Villa Sanitarium recently, but apparently his chief source of income is the Army and Navy Medical Record. He is alleged to have claimed that some medical officials of the government are interested with him in this publication but that these officials do not wish their names known. We do not blame them.

Photographic facsimile of a letter sent by the Army and Navy Medical Record to the dean of University of Michigan, Department of Medicine and Surgery, offering one hundred and twenty-five dollars’ worth of advertising space for a “nominal” thirty-eight dollars—with editorial indorsements and recommendations thrown in for good measure!

ADVERTISEMENTS AS EDITORIALS

A glance through two issues of the Army and Navy Medical Record makes perfectly plain the character of the publication. The January-February, 1913, number leads off with articles by well-known medical officers in the Army, the Navy and the Public Health Service. These have been copied from other publications. Then comes an editorial entitled “A Much Needed Dietary Reform,” devoted to the laudation of “Postum,” the widely advertised coffee substitute. Following this is an editorial on “The Philosophy of Hypnotics” in which aconitine, saline laxative and digitalin are each given a “boost.” Then comes an “original article” (save the mark!) entitled “The Physiological Pathology of Consumption.” This is by “Alfred S. Gubb, M.D., L.R.C.P., London, M.R.C.S., Eng., D.P.H., etc. etc., Aix-les-Bains, Savoie, France.” Two pages are devoted to this. The “joker” appears in the third paragraphs from the end—Fellows’ Syrup of Hypophosphites. Dioxogen receives more than three pages of editorial mention under the caption “The Sterilization of Milk with Dioxogen.” Under “Another New Electrical Wonder—Magnified Sound,” the “Acousticon” is given a two-and-a-quarter page write-up. “What Wise Men Wear” is the title of a four-page article—unsigned—devoted to the laudation of suspensories in general and the “O-P-C Suspensory” in particular. Dr. H. F. Boatman, Los Angeles, contributes a short article on “A Case of Advanced Pulmonic Tuberculosis Treated with Injections of Dioradin,” while our good old friend Willard H. Morse, M.D., “F.S.Sc. (Lond.),” the champion fake-testimonial-giver of the country, writes more or less entertainingly on “Putting on a Mustard Plaster.” The article has nothing to do with mustard plasters but has a good deal to do with “Zumota,” a nostrum recommended as a substitute for the mustard plaster. These are but a few of the nostrums to which the editorial and reading pages of the Army and Navy Medical Record are devoted.

In the June-July issue, Arthur G. Lewis becomes bolder. The leading article is entitled “First Aid in the Navy,” by C. F. Stokes, Surgeon-General, United States Navy. There is nothing to indicate that this article was not contributed to the Army and Navy Medical Record by its author. As a matter of fact, it originally appeared in an official publication, the United States Naval Medical Bulletin for January, 1913, and was reprinted by Lewis without credit and without permission. Following the article by Dr. Stokes is another, unsigned, entitled “The Passing of ‘The Pie Habit.’” This describes the surprise of the students of Harvard University at being served breakfast cereals instead of pie at their noonday meal and suggests that “Shredded Wheat Biscuits” make a “delicious dessert.” A two-and-a-half page article on the “Danger of Corrosive Sublimate in Vaginal Douche” is reprinted from the Lancet-Clinic of September, 1903. The reason for resurrecting this ten-year-old article becomes apparent before one gets half through it. It deals not so much with the danger of corrosive sublimate as with the marvelous—alleged—properties of Tyree’s Antiseptic Powder. Dr. Claude C. Keeler, Denver, has a three-page article on the “Medical Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis.” The “medical treatment” referred to is Waterbury’s Compound. An editorial entitled “One Notch Ahead of Morphin” is devoted to that vicious morphin solution sold under the proprietary name “Papine.” Another on “The Treatment of Catarrh by Palliatives and Curatives” deals with a widely advertised “patent medicine,” “Kondon’s Catarrhal Jelly.” What appears to be a contributed article by Charles Wardell Stiles of the United States Public Health Service on “Country Schools and Rural Sanitation” has really been “lifted” from an official publication without credit and, needless to say, without Dr. Stiles’ permission.

But medicinal preparations are not the only things to which the Army and Navy Medical Record gives editorial indorsement. All advertising matter, apparently, is grist to its mill. Sandwiched in between articles on “Public Health Administrations” and “Important Army Medical Lectures” is a dissertation on “The Millennium of Shirt Construction,” in which are sung the virtues of the tailless shirt! A little farther along the Hawaiian pineapple is extolled, while the last pages of the issue are devoted to various banking concerns.

In addition to the advertisements appearing throughout the reading and editorial pages of these two issues of the Army and Navy Medical Record, there are a number of display advertisements. There is no reason to suppose, at least in the majority of cases, that the advertisers had the slightest reason to suspect the nature of the Army and Navy Medical Record. Several pages are devoted to financial advertisements, there being more than forty banks that have “fallen for” the wiles of Arthur G. Lewis. In view of the letters received by the deans of medical colleges and other educational institutions, the display advertisements of schools and colleges have a special interest to physicians. Schools for girls, polytechnics, colleges of music, veterinary, dental and medical schools—all are to be found in this cosmopolitan publication.

Among the therapeutic products advertised—in the advertising pages—are:

Fellows’ Syrup of Hypophosphites	1	cover page
Kondon’s Catarrhal Jelly	¹⁄₂	page
Expurgo Anti-Diabetes	¹⁄₂	page
Laxol	¹⁄₂	page
Campho-Phénique	¹⁄₂	page
Palpebrine	¹⁄₂	page
Zumota	¹⁄₂	page
Sanmetto	¹⁄₄	page

While in the reading pages the following products are puffed:

Tyree’s Antiseptic Powder.	Dioxogen.
Waterbury’s Compound.	Palpebrine.
Papine.	Bannerman’s Intravenous Solution.
Kondon’s Catarrhal Jelly.	Daniel’s Concentrated Tincture of Passiflora.
Ranier Natural Soap.	Peacock’s Bromides.
Iodia (Battle).	Aletris Cordial Rio.
Creo-Derma.	Gonosan.
Fellows’ Syrup of Hypophosphites.	Digipuratum.
Tannalbin.	Dioradin.
Expurgo Anti-Diabetes.	Pepto-Fer.
Zumota.	Lactol.
Sulfothen.	Campho-Phénique.

Summed up: The Army and Navy Medical Record is but another of the parasites of quackery. It is not entered as second-class matter and it has probably no bona-fide circulation. While it is claimed to be “Devoted to the Interest of the Medical and Surgical Corps of the Army and Navy, the Public Health Marine Hospital Service and the Red Cross Society” it is actually devoted to none of these. It is devoted to the exploitation of the advertising public for the special financial benefit of the man who calls himself its editor—Arthur G. Lewis. Advertising contracts are obtained under false and fraudulent pretenses. In brief, Arthur G. Lewis is using the good name of the various medical services of the United States government to further his swindling operations. He has written letters to honorable physicians making dishonest and insulting propositions to deceive and defraud the public. Editorial indorsements of the Army and Navy Medical Record mean nothing except that money has been paid for them. In short, the Army and Navy Medical Record is a fraud, and its “editor,” Arthur G. Lewis, a faker.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Oct. 25, 1913.)