Quack Quiz

A man in a slouch hat sidled up to a drugstore counter, cast a furtive look about him and beckoned to the druggist. "Say, Bud, I have a young man assisting me on the road. ... He tells me that he has a burning sensation, a sort of continual discharge. . . ."

"Sure," answered the druggist, "he's got gonorrhea. I can give you an ointment which will fix it up."

In 1,150 drugstores of 35 U. S. cities last fall, this same scene was enacted by the same man. He had no sick "friend": he was pussyfooting for the U. S. Public Health Service and Manhattan's American Social Hygiene Association. His mission: to find out whether three years of Government education on venereal disease had really "taken" or whether quacks still hold the field. Last week Social Hygienists Mary Stockton Edwards and Paul Michael Kinsie published the results of the traveling investigator. Gloomy were their conclusions. Some 5,000,000 venereal disease victims, said they, out of a total of 18.000,000, still run to quacks for help each year. Interesting statistics:

> In drugstores "62% [of the clerks] diagnosed the disease and offered to sell remedies. ... 31% did not attempt to diagnose the case but . . . were willing to sell bottled remedies. Only 7-c- of the whole number refused to diagnose the disease or sell remedies. . . .

> "[Over 1,000] men in all walks of life were interviewed in the street, in parks, in poolrooms. . . . Each was asked: 'Where do you suggest I go to get fixed up for a ----(colloquial for venereal disease)?' Of these, 65.4% advised a drugstore remedy or self-treatment. . . . 31.4% said, 'Go to a good doctor or ---- clinic.' The remainder, 3.2%, did not know." Comparing these figures with those of a similar survey made six years ago, Hygienists Edwards and Kinsie concluded that the public knew less about good treatment for venereal disease in 1939 than it did in 1933. Further, "there is some indication that the sale of . . . 'remedies' is now even larger in volume."

> To rescue quack victims, the social hygienists suggested that: 1) anti-quackery laws be passed in the 33 States which have none; 2) existing laws be strongly enforced; 3) the U. S. Public Health Service spend more money* on counter-propaganda telling venereal disease sufferers ex actly "where to go for advice, diagnosis and treatment.''

Venereal disease appropriations for 1940 totaled $5,000,000. President Roosevelt's 1941 budget cuts this sum to $3,000,000.

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