PINEOLEUM ADVERTISING METHODS
Capitalizing the Name and Position of the President of the American Medical Association
To the Editor:—Enclosed is a postal card which a physician in Oklahoma has sent me together with thirty-six cents in stamps. The envelop was addressed to me at the address of the Pineoleum Company. The postoffice corrected the address and sent it to me. It is evident, therefore, that the physician in Oklahoma thought I was sending these postals as an employee of the Pineoleum Company, or, at least, was endorsing their products.
Postal card capitalizing the name and position of the President of the American Medical Association.
Kindly do me the favor to publish this letter in The Journal as a protest against the dishonesty of this method of advertising. What is quoted from an article that I wrote appeared originally in the New York State Journal of Medicine and was abstracted in The Journal of the American Medical Association of August 2, 1919. The obvious inference to be drawn from this postal is that I referred to the products of the Pineoleum Company in that article. I did not have the products of the Pineoleum Company in my mind. I never have used their products and never prescribed them.
This form of advertising is done with intent to deceive and did deceive the doctor in Oklahoma. It was therefore a successful falsehood, its success depending on the false use of the name of the President of the American Medical Association to bolster up the sale of the product.
I resent the use of my name in connection with the quack advertising of nostrum venders. The low, vulpine cunning of the method used is on the same level as the deceit and dishonesty which use this form of advertising to the injury of my name and reputation. As President of the American Medical Association I must insist that you protect me by publishing this letter in The Journal, giving it as widespread publicity as possible.
Alexander Lambert.
[Comment.—“Pineoleum” is a “patent medicine” advertised in the cheapest and most effective way—by the aid of the easy going and complacent physician. In 1906 Pineoleum was being marketed by the Winslow Laboratory of New York City, which also put out three or four other nostrums—“Morumalt,” “Egeriol,” “Digestylin,” and “Ford’s Nucleo-Peptone.” Pineoleum was advertised to the public then as it is advertised now, via the medical profession. Physicians are circularized and are offered a petty graft in the form of a cheap nebulizer and a sample bottle of Pineoleum. Some time ago the company seems to have developed a scheme whereby physicians could make money “dispensing Pineoleum nebulizer outfits at more than 140 per cent. profit.” The Pineoleum concern for years has also polluted the stream at its source by attempting to get the secretary of the senior class of every medical school to distribute its free nebulizer outfits to members of the class and receive therefor 5 cents for each outfit distributed! The life history of Pineoleum is that of the typical nostrum. Epidemics, of course, are utilized as opportunities for pushing the product. In 1911 a card was sent out featuring “A Special LaGrippe Offer”; in 1916 the profession was circularized recommending Pineoleum as “The Ideal Prophylactic” in infantile paralysis; during the past year influenza has again been the selling point.
The case described by Dr. Lambert is not the first example of the misuse of names and statements of physicians. Last December the Pineoleum concern was sending out an advertising card in which Dr. McCoy of the United States Public Health Service was quoted as recommending Pineoleum as the “bulwark of prevention” and “battery of relief” in influenza. Of course, Dr. McCoy never said anything of the sort. A protest against this particular falsehood resulted in another card being sent out several months later by the Pineoleum people purporting to explain and apologize for the misquotations and putting the blame on the printer. The “apology” ended with a postscript (in larger and bolder face type than the body of the card) that urged physicians to “secure our liberal introductory advertising proposition on improved oil nebulizer outfits.” From the standpoint of publicity for Pineoleum, the “explanation and apology” was doubtless as good an advertisement as the original card of misrepresentation.—Ed.]—(From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 1, 1919.)