To the Editor:—Enclosed is a little booklet I received today from the Goodhue Publishing Co., of New York, exploiting the Horowitz-Beebe cure-all for cancer, which, were it not for certain obvious serious features, would make humorous reading.
What psychologic explanation can be made of the fact that there are always sufficient numbers of suckers to make such pseudoscientific adventures profitable?
H. C. Dodge, M.D., steamboat Springs, Colo.
To the Editor:—In my professional life I have been flooded with the usual number of insults to intelligence both by mail and by the softspoken detail man. As a result, I have no doubt, of the active propaganda for reform carried on by The Journal, these insults have lost a certain quality of “rawness” and become much more cleverly done.
One of these has just been perpetrated on the profession which will probably hold the championship pennant for 1916, although I admit that it is early in the year to begin prophecy. A very modestly bound, well printed volume comes to my desk with the compliments of the publishers. At the end of the volume is a group of highly ethical advertisements of other books of the author. So far, so good. The last four pages, however, contain the advertisement of a forthcoming book on the “autolysin” treatment of inoperable cancer. Perhaps we might forgive this were it not for the following paragraph: “This book tells how the general practitioner ... may take an active hand in fighting the malady. The weapons he requires are an ordinary hypodermic syringe and some ampules of Autolysin. The syringe he already possesses. Autolysin he may secure, if he is a legally qualified practitioner, by writing,” etc. Incidentally, the book is advertised to the Intelligent Layman.
Isn’t it beautiful? Too bad the lamented F. F. F. with his mock turtles or those prominent eugenists of scopolamin-morphin fame could not take a lesson in advertising. It was not very long ago that we were invited to come East and learn how to use “autolysin,” or else pay the rather heavy fee for an imported tutor. Now all we need is a “gun” and some of the “dope.” All this is interesting in view of the recent article on the failure of “autolysin” in mouse tumor. It is a foregone conclusion that a lot of “autolysin” will be used, so cancer patients, who have been told that they have cancer, will get better through suggestion, and a lot of enthusiastic reports will pour in from medical brethren who have never studied psychology. Then the thing will slump and we shall all be ready for the next fad.
Nevertheless, each one of these things furnishes us with a text for another sermon on ethics of medical advertising, so I suppose they do not live in vain.
J. W. Force, M.D., Berkeley, Calif.
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of California.
[Comment.—With each of the foregoing communications is a circular letter from the Goodhue Company, advertising Dr. Henry Smith Williams’ book on “The Autolysin Treatment of Cancer.” With this circular is a booklet entitled “Notes on the Treatment of Inoperable Cancer with the New Remedy Autolysin (Horowitz-Beebe) Issued by the Autolysin Laboratory.” Similar circular letters and pamphlets have been sent to The Journal from various parts of the country. The Goodhue Company, publishers, therefore are apparently killing two birds with one stone—advertising the book as well as “Autolysin.”