“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.