Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh].

  • Walsh, David
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    epilepsy, and diabetes, and even cancer. Instead of so doing, they take the extreme course of refusing an advertisement of the work. Wise in their own genera- tion, they assign no reason for the refusal, and the suggestion that it is in the fear of offending the quack drug sellers is permissible. It is not an incident of which the British Press can feel proud, but it is one of which the medical profession must take note.” It is a curious fact that a newspaper whose pro- prietors exclude betting news on the ground of public morality should not hesitate to insert advertisements of worthless and injurious nostrums, the real nature of which has been publicly exposed in the law courts and elsewhere, and must be recognised by every ex- perienced man of the world, to which class the average newspaper editor presumably belongs. For many years Truth has done good service by the constant exposure of quacks and quackery, and the medical profession should be grateful to the editor of that journal for the fearless way in which he has assumed the neglected functions of public prosecutor, of police, of General Medical Council, and of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Speaking generally, it is difficult to realise by what code of ethics any honour- able editor can give publicity to unqualified prac- titioners and to secret remedies, the true character of which has been exposed, or is obvious to the most superficial observer. It is the more surprising when we consider that some of the proprietors of leading British newspapers are among the peers of the realm. Where is the xoblesse oblige in helping a quack medicine proprietor to defraud the public by selling worthless “cures”? for, say, incurable kidney disease, or to destroy health and life by dangerous drugs sold by lying promises to cure this, that, or the other malady, or, haply, some four or five score assorted diseases? Nor is wonder lessened when we find that in religious or semi-religious journals the quacks find their securest stronghold. Why should not a self-respecting lay editor refer all advertisements of “cures” and remedies to a competent medical sub-editor? An American newspaper, to its honour be it said, has excluded offensive medical advertisements from its columns. This step of the St. Paul Pioneer Press has been taken at considerable financial sacrifice, and the St. Paul’s Dispatch later announced that it was going to “clean up its columns.” This action was warmly commended by the Journal of the American Associa- tion. (a) (a) May 15th, 1909, p. 1,599,