Medicine: Intelligence

Several items last week made intelligent physicians ponder their relations to the press.

In Manhattan, Dr. C. Everett Field, director of the Radium Institute of New York, had vexed many physicians by advocating a cancer-cure nostrum of one Dr. William F. Koch of Detroit. Dr. Field's advocacy was the more dangerous because of the wide press publicity recently accorded his claimed ability to transmute diamond tints (TIME, Aug. 23). But, besides Dr. George A. Soper, who spoke officially as director of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, only two Manhattan physicians openly opposed Dr. Field's claims. They were Dr. David Bryson Delavan, a director of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, and Dr. Robert Tuttle Morris, emeritus professor of Surgery of the Post-Graduate Medical School. Lesser men talked with confidentially candid contempt. But only under promise that their names be not mentioned. They feared that their ethical confreres would charge them with publicity seeking.

In Rome, Dr. Marco Porzio, great surgeon, was quoted as denouncing U. S. surgeons for "permitting" Rudolph Valentino to die (TIME, Aug. 30), after a mere "appendicitis" operation. The fact is, Rudolph Valentino died of septicaemia (blood poisoning) after the perforation of a gastric (stomach) ulcer. Polyclinic Hospital officials had not realized that many people were as interested in the cinema-man's disease as in his personality. Indeed, so gauntly meagre were the hospital bulletins that an Italian correspondent cabled Mr. Valentino's malady as "appendicitis." Dr. Porzio was deceived. But no one in the U. S. explained away his misconception until good-natured Surgeon Charles Horace Mayo of Rochester, Minn., roused himself. He knew himself eminent beyond all criticism. He spoke out. Others commented subsequently.

In Manhattan, the Valentino case had given Bernarr Macfadden's Evening ("porno") Graphic opportunity to drool libidinously. According to its headlines and full- full-page accounts, Rudolph Valentino had been poisoned by a jealous female, had been pummeled by a jealous male, had been shot in a supper-club quarrel.

In London, Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, surgeon, authority on intestinal disorders (TIME, Dec. 7), found his photograph printed on 40,000 menus of Lyons restaurants.* The printing was done without his knowledge. He needs no such publicity. Nor does such publicity injure his reputation, nor curtail his skill. None the less, the British Medical Association denounced him, even though he had resigned from it a year ago because of professional criticism of his disease prevention work.† At this time Sir William simply folded his hands and declared: "In England, if any one writes to the newspapers and signs his name, the so-called ethical committee comes down on him and asks what business he has to educate the public. It is a self-constituted body with no right to exist, which writes rude, insulting letters to people. In America you can write freely to the newspapers, educating the people."

Sir William, last winter an observant visitor to the U.S., is wrong. The U.S. doctor does not write freely to the newspapers. And reputable newspapers often complain that it is not easy to get information from U.S. doctors.