“The only known cure for gall-stones, kidney and bladder stones, gravel and all kidney trouble arising from uric-acid origin.”
Did Kilmer’s Swamp-Root ever claim more? “Diabetes is no longer an incurable disease” runs the advertisement of the Jireh Diabetic Food Company, yet the editor of the Medical Times must know that in The Journal[133] and in the reports of state chemists the Jireh diabetic foods have been shown time and again to be among the most dangerous and fraudulently exploited products sold to the unfortunate diabetic.
Phenalgin,[134] twin brother to the Antikamnia fraud, shouts its inferential falsehoods in a half-page display. Micajah’s Wafers,[135] the alum-borax mixture long advertised as a cure for gonorrhea, endometritis, etc., may also be found, as well as many other preparations exposed at various times by The Journal. For example: Anasarcin,[136] Campho-Phenique,[137] Papine,[138] Bromidia,[139] Cactina Pillets,[140] Pluto Water,[141] Prunoids,[142] Sanatogen[143] and Sal Hepatica.[144]
What excuse can the Medical Times offer for the presence of these frauds in its pages? Are these, too, “the result of an oversight”? Presumably for thus bringing to its attention these various other disreputable advertisements, The Journal will be accused again of violating “the ethics of journalism.” If calling attention to fraudulent advertisements is out of keeping with the ethics of journalism, what, pray, must be said of publications that are willing to share in the profits of such fraudulent exploitation? But, and we cannot repeat it too often, the Medical Times is but one of a class, neither worse nor better than many other medical journals whose financial support comes from the proprietary interests rather than from the medical profession. The responsibility for the existence of these journals really rests not on the business men who conduct them on a commercial basis, but on the physicians who tolerate or encourage them in any way.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 8, 1913.)
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM
A Clean Medical Journal—the South Texas Medical Record
Fortunately, there are forces at work in the medical profession that make for optimism. An editorial in the last issue—April, 1915—of the South Texas Medical Record, the official organ of the South Texas District Medical Association, is especially significant. While not a large journal, the South Texas Medical Record could well stand as an example to medical publications of a much more pretentious character. Its advertising pages are above reproach and the journal is a credit alike to its editors and to those members of the profession whose support makes its existence possible. In the editorial referred to, entitled, “Honest Advertising—Let Us Cleanse Our Own Linen First,” the editor-in-chief, Dr. W. Burton Thorning, says:
“A recent editorial, entitled ‘Honest Advertising,’ in a daily newspaper, furnished the occasion for an editorial comment in the January number of the Southwestern Hospital Reporter. The latter, while taking the ground that the newspaper was inconsistent in uttering high editorial sentiments and in adjoining columns printing patent medicine advertisements, implied that newspaper men should be allowed some latitude in the matter of accepting advertising, on the plea of being laymen and therefore not expected to possess the same amount of information concerning patent ‘dope’ that medical men have.
“It would appear to be a fair assumption that a layman, even though a highly educated and able editor of a great newspaper, does not know, and cannot be expected to know, the depth of depravity to which the consumption cure faker and the cancer quack can descend.