Prophylaxis Publicity

In Manhattan last January the American Social Hygiene Association heard New York City's Health Commissioner Dr. John Levi Rice earnestly single out the prevention and treatment of syphilis as the gravest single problem facing his department (TIME, Jan. 27).

Taking the cue from Dr. Rice, the huge, proletarian New York Daily News forthwith launched an editorial campaign. It was criminal and foolish, said the News, to withhold from the public a full & free knowledge of venereal prophylaxis. The News soon discovered that the subject was alive with reader interest. Many of the paper's 2,900,000 purchasers wrote in to praise it for frankness and public spirit. Others denounced the paper for encouraging immorality. And a few News readers told how they had contracted tragic ailments for want of proper information.

The Chicago Tribune, first cousin of the News, has long made it a point to beleaguer venereal quacks. The News decided to try to make it as easy for the masses to get correct information about venereal diseases as about tuberculosis. Newsman Carl Warren was told to turn out a series of articles on social diseases, how to cure them, where free treatment might be obtained. Last week the Warren articles were bound in a pamphlet, titled Venereal Diseases & Prophylaxis, priced at 5-c-, put on sale in the News Information Bureau, where the helpful journal also peddles at nominal rates sound advice on cookery, fashions, reducing exercises. To top it all, the News took generous space in its own pages to advertise Venereal Diseases & Prophylaxis, thus breaking all records in modern metropolitan journalism for frankness on an elaborately tabooed subject.

Said Newsman Warren: "I aimed at simplicity, dignity and scientific accuracy."

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