“In the interest of suffering humanity will you please give space to the enclosed?
“No object of greater importance has ever been presented for your helpful consideration. Thousands are dying whom you can help save.”
According to the “news item” that accompanies this letter the “Cosmopolitan Cancer Research Society” has been founded for the purpose of “investigating and developing methods” by which cancer “may be successfully combated and eventually eradicated.” It states further that the “society” will “disseminate information concerning symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and methods of prevention” of cancer. Furthermore, the membership of the society “includes physicians, scientists and chemists of prominence, laymen of means, and the sympathetically inclined from all walks of life.” Nor is this all!
“Doctor Frederick Klein the eminent authority on urinology and the chemistry of cancer, has evolved a new colorimetric test which is a most wonderful and valuable discovery in the diagnosis of cancer and various other diseases. This test will be particularly valuable in all life extension work because it determines, even in children the possibility of predisposition toward any particular disease, whether tuberculosis, cancer, diabetes or any of the diseases which in later life may become fatal. It determines also the vitality of the subject enabling the physician to accurately determine the condition of any of the vital organs.”
We learn in closing that memberships in the “society” are “graduated from $1.00 upwards according to the ability and disposition of those who may be interested.”
Located at 77 Seventh Avenue, from which the press agent material of the “Medical News Bureau” is sent, is the “Basic Chemical Corporation of America.” According to such information as we have been able to get, the president of this concern is F. W. Humphreys, the “student of chemistry and science who has devoted years to the study of the cause of cancer and the discovery of methods of relief.” We are informed that Mr. Humphreys was for a while in the employ of a “chemical company” of Philadelphia, and has been in the photographic line down in Virginia and later was connected with a real estate concern in Brooklyn. Another officer of the Basic Chemical Corporation is said to have been in the grocery line in a small village in Missouri, selling out and later coming to Brooklyn and entering the insurance business. Still another officer, it seems, was in the fish business. In addition to these three officers, there are two directors, one of whom is in the fancy grocery line, and the other is a local practicing physician whose name we find in the Propaganda department’s testimonial file under Sanmetto and Arsenauro.
The Dr. Frederick Klein, who is described as the “eminent authority on urinology and the chemistry of cancer,” is not a physician but claims a Ph.D. from Munich, Bavaria. Klein claims to have developed certain urinary tests. One of these, according to him, “indicates the body Vitality with great accuracy,” another proves the presence of cancer, a third is the “syphilis test” and a fourth is the “pregnancy test.” And these are not all!
Those who read the reports of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry may remember that Frederick Klein is the gentleman who made “Sulfo-Selene,” which the Council, in refusing it recognition, described as a “mixture containing a selenium compound of undetermined composition produced by reduction of nitro-selenous acid with sulphurous acid, mixed with bile salts and diluents.” Sulfo-Selene was widely exploited in the newspapers in 1916 as a remedy for cancer, and Klein got a good deal of publicity at that time.
Just what product the Basic Chemical Corporation of America is putting, or is about to put, on the market we do not know. From the rather vague talk about selenium and Frederick Klein’s marvelous diagnostic discoveries, it might be inferred that “Sulfo-Selene” was to be resurrected. Be that as it may, it seems fairly obvious that the material being sent out by D. E. Woolley—whether as “Manager” of the “Medical News Bureau” or as “Secretary” of the “Cosmopolitan Cancer Research Society”—is advertising matter in the guise of news.
In this connection it is worth noting that the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association, in a special bulletin issued in 1909, published a very complete list of press agents and the interests these agents represented. This list contains the name D. E. Woolley, who then was sending out press notices for the National Association of Piano Dealers of America. Is this the gentleman who is now acting as press agent for the Basic Chemical Corporation of America? If it is, it may be that the slump in the piano trade has caused Mr. Woolley to turn from musical instruments to cancer cures.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Sept. 3, 1921.)