Advertise?

Medical Economics is a magazine "guaranteed to reach 100,000 physicians monthly," approved by the American Medical Association, published in Manhattan. Its editor is H. Sheridan Baketel, M.D.

The leading article in the May number is Shall the Medical Profession Advertise?

Excerpts:

"Is the public health purchasable?

"Is it possible to increase the span of life?

"To both of these queries Medical Economics answers Yes.

"How ? By the use of printer's ink-- by preaching it from the housetops-- by advertising!

". . . The laity is commencing to learn that public health is purchasable. And laymen are in the market for that commodity in wholesale quantities.

"Are we, as physicians, going to sell it to them, or are we going to sit supinely on our haunches as we have done before and permit some untutored and unlettered cult to do for the people what they have every right to expect of us?

". . . The value of periodic health examinations cannot be better shown than in the report of the study of 17,000 examinations for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company which demonstrates that people who have a periodic health examination and follow the advice given have a death rate of 28% less than people who are not examined and advised. Of the physical defects found in these examinations the most important were:

26.0% Enlarged or Infected Tonsils.

13.0% Overweight.

12.2% Albuminuria.

8.5% Pyorrhea and Infected Teeth.

6.0% Functional Murmurs.

5.1% Hernia.

5.0% Arterio-Sclerosis.

2.5% Enlargement of Heart.

1.0% Organic Heart Disease.

.4% Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

". . . How can the mass of the people learn of the absolute necessity of being thoroughly examined once a year?

"By the judicious application of large doses of printer's ink in the form of advertising in the public press?

"Where shall such advertising appear?

"In daily and weekly papers, in special publications going into the home, like the farm papers, women's journals, Saturday Evening Post, Collier's and other periodicals which are read by the people ?

". . . Who should prepare the advertising copy?

"A committee from the Society paying for the publicity, with the aid and assistance of an advertising agency, so that the proper selling arguments could be discriminatingly advanced."

The magazine went on to state that "at the March meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Kings, (Brooklyn, N.Y.), the editor of Medical Economics advocated this general idea . . . and not only did the society enthusiastically endorse it, but another speaker in the person of Mr. Arthur Brisbane, editor of the Hearst publications, gave the plan his hearty approval."