We have no record of an “American Health University” of Chicago, although there was an “Illinois Health University” of Chicago, one of the numerous diploma-mill swindles operated by Armstrong. It was declared fraudulent by the federal authorities and its charter was revoked in 1897. Flower, according to the notice in Polk’s Directory, is:
Ex-President Maine Eclectic Society.
Ex-President New England Eclectic Medical Association.
Member National Eclectic Medical Association.
Member American Progressive Medical Society.
Member Massachusetts Eclectic Medical Society.
Z. L. Baldwin, M.D., Kalamazoo, Mich.—Possibly the data just given concerning some of those whose names appeared on the organization’s stationery are more than sufficient for the average physician to get a perspective of the Allied Medical Associations of America. Still, it is worth mentioning that in a letter recently sent out by Ignatz Mayer, extending an invitation to the annual convention of the Allied Medical Associations of America, Mayer took the opportunity of incorporating in his letter a letter which one of the members of the “association” had been sending out, urging individuals to join. The member in question was Dr. Z. L. Baldwin of Kalamazoo, Mich. Dr. Baldwin, as some of our readers may remember, is the gentleman who, a few years ago, was exploiting an “Intravenous Treatment” for the cure of tuberculosis. According to the claims made at that time:
“... for the first time in the history of medicine, we have a successful treatment for tuberculosis.
“... we are able to kill the germs of the disease in the body, thoroughly ridding it of all tubercular infection, destroying the germ and its poisons likewise.”
This was a few years ago. Whether Dr. Baldwin is still specializing in consumption we do not know; apparently not, as we notice that at the first meeting of the Allied Medical Associations, Baldwin’s name was on the program for the “Cure of Goiter by Adjustment of Lenses.”
George Starr White, M.D., F.S.Sc., Lond., Los Angeles, Calif.—A letter received by a physician a few days before the recent convention of the Allied Medical Associations, held out as an inducement to be present the fact that “Geo. S. White will show you how to diagnose disease by means of dif. colored lights and the reaction of the body to the magnetic meridian.” Dr. George Starr White was the “Second Vice-President” of the Allied Medical Associations in 1918. White, according to our records, was graduated in 1908 when he was forty-two years old, by the New York Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital. He was licensed in New York in 1908, in California, Connecticut and Nevada in 1913, and in Michigan in 1916. He seems to have been one of the proponents of “spondylotherapy,” “zonetherapy,” etc., and in 1915 it was announced that he would give one week courses in “Spondylotherapy” in Chicago, Kansas City and Denver, respectively. In his advertisement he emphasized that he was a Fellow of the American Medical Association, which, while true at the time, is no longer true, as on Feb. 4, 1916, he was expelled from membership in the Los Angeles County Medical Association. In May, 1915, White was arrested in Chicago and fined $100 and costs for practicing medicine without a license. Dr. White’s specialty seems to be what is ponderously known as “Bio-Dynamo-Chromatic Diagnosis.” This has been described by one of its enthusiastic adherents as “Diagnosis by Sympathetic Vagal-Reflex.” To obtain the “Sympathetic Vagal-Reflex” it seems the patient must face east or west and have his bare abdomen percussed until a dull area is located. The patient is then faced north or south and again percussed. Then, it seems, different colored lights are thrown on the patient, the location of the areas of dullness being determined meanwhile. A combination of ruby and blue lights “will cause a reflex in cases of gonorrhea,” a “green light will cause a reflex in cases of liver or gallbladder trouble,” while the color for carcinoma is orange red! During the height of the influenza epidemic last winter, White seems to have put on the market “Valens Essential Oil Tablets” which were for “Gripping the Flu out of Influenza,” and were also said greatly to benefit or cure incipient tuberculosis, hay-fever, asthma, and “catar.” The letters “F.S.Sc., Lond.” after Dr. White’s name look well, sound well, and have an air of erudition and mystery that is well worth what they cost. They mean “Fellow of the Incorporated Society of Science, Letters and Arts of London, Ltd.” The “Fellowship” costs one guinea. Not a few “patent medicine” exploiters in the United States carry these mystic letters after their names. The society in question was a seriocomic concern that was exposed by London Truth some years ago and was also dealt with in The Journal of May 29, 1909, in connection with the “Aicsol Consumption Cure” exposé.
So much for the Allied Medical Associations of America. At their recent meeting in New York City they got much newspaper publicity because of their action on the prohibition question. According to the newspaper reports, the organization adopted a resolution declaring that “properly brewed lager beer is absolutely essential in the treatment of certain cases.” They were further reported as endorsing the manufacture of light wines and of beer containing not to exceed 2.75 per cent. alcohol. As a piece of publicity work this resolution was all that its sponsors could expect. The Journal office was flooded with telegrams and letters from physicians, temperance workers, congressmen, church organizations, and others, asking, in effect, What is the Allied Medical Associations of America? This is our apology for giving the amount of space necessary to a proper understanding of this organization. Today the rocket of the Allied Medical Associations of America is blazing a more or less erratic course across the sky of publicity. The stick will be down anon! Any resolution or expression of opinion by this organization, or others of its type, when dealing with the broader problems of public health, is wholly without scientific significance, whether such resolutions are good, bad or indifferent.—(From The Journal A. M. A., July 5, 1919.)