“Should you call me personally in consultation an additional fee of $150 per diem covering the time I am away from my Kansas City office; fees to be collected and held until I arrive.”
The letter that was intended only for the doctor’s eye declared:
“You are to have $100 of the fee and $50 of the per diem.”
It explained that the “complete outfit” referred to in the “patient’s letter” would “consist in part of a tube of intravenous medication” and doses of “Restorative Capsules” and “Eli 606 Capsules.”
Eli H. Dunn seems to have had a somewhat varied and spectacular career. After being graduated in 1885 he apparently started practice in Orion, Ill. During the nineties he was practicing at Elma, Iowa, and about 1900 he seems to have moved to Kansas City, Mo. During 1906 and 1908, he also had an additional office at Denver, Col. About this time he was exploiting “Dunn’s Uterine Evacuant” which was “a strictly legitimate” product which could “be injected within the uterus with perfect safety and immediate effect.” This stuff was advertised both from the Kansas City and the Denver offices. The “Personal Column” of a Kansas City paper in 1910 carried the message to “Ladies” that “Dr. Dunn” was a “Regular physician for women only,” Dunn’s violation of the postal laws in 1911 and of the federal Food and Drugs Act in 1912 need not be gone into at this time.
The Journal would feel like apologizing for devoting space to such a preposterous scheme were it not for the fact that physicians, being human, sometimes “fall for” preposterous schemes. Some, we know, have nibbled at Dunn’s bait; others may do so. The gross commercialism that permeates the advertising matter sent out by Dunn again emphasizes the fact that the fad for intravenous medication offers an attractive field for those who would exploit our profession.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 22, 1919.)
GLOVER’S CANCER SERUM
Scores of letters have reached—and are reaching—The Journal office similar in effect to the following:
“I am enclosing ‘literature’ received from the ‘T. J. Glover Research Laboratory.’ Though purporting to come from Toronto, where the $25.00 are to be sent, if you please, the envelope bears the New York postmark.”