I. L. Nascher, M.D., New York.
Comment.—Accompanying the preceding letter was a note from Dr. Nascher in which he says: “I want this published in full without elision or change. If you do not intend to publish it as written, I want it returned and enclose postage.” The letter therefore is given in full in spite of the fact that much of it is irrelevant to the question discussed.
Dr. Nascher’s protest to Sharpe and Dohme against the “unwarranted use” of his name in connection with “Pill Phosphorus Amorphous, S & D” seems to have resulted in various modifications of the phrases connecting his name with the exploitation of this pill. What was apparently the original advertisement, contained the phrase:
“Made under the direction of Dr. I. L. Nascher, New York.”
Later advertisements, while identical in all other respects with the first, had this phrase modified to read:
“Made at the suggestion of Dr. I. L. Nascher, New York.”
Still other advertisements, also identical with the first in other respects, are modified to read:
“Made with the approval of Dr. I. L. Nascher, New York.”
That Dr. Nascher was directly or indirectly connected with the commercializing of this product, The Journal has never suggested, inferentially or otherwise. That the exploitation of amorphous phosphorus by Sharpe and Dohme is one that appeals to the sexual neurasthenic, no one who has read the advertisements can deny. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to sell phosphorus in any form as a medicament, without appealing to the sexual neurasthenic. The word “phosphorus” has become, in the minds of both laymen and physicians, more or less synonymous with the treatment of so-called sexual weakness and it is a practical impossibility to divorce the word from the idea suggested. How true this is, Dr. Nascher himself unwittingly admits when he tells that the result of his first experiment on himself with amorphous phosphorus was a priapism that he acknowledges was “probably psychic, as I was looking for such a result.” But the Sharpe and Dohme advertisements plainly state that the amorphous phosphorus pill they are marketing is a “new and successful method of treatment for ... functional and senile impotence....”
Dr. Nascher’s explanation of how he came to send out the slip regarding amorphous phosphorus to medical journals leaves him the victim of an unfortunate coincidence. It is at least unusual for authors to send out advance extracts from books that are about to be published, especially when such extracts deal wholly with a drug that is coincidently being introduced as a new proprietary product by some enterprising pharmaceutical house.