Health and Publicity
THE doctors are moving. It is evident that recent criticism of the rules and etiquette of the medical profession has had its effect. Doctors generally are admitting that more use must be made of publicity if we are to have a healthy nation. Half-educated people, and a good many well-educated people who happen to be careless, are unbelievably stupid about what Bacon called the "-regiment of health." -The only way in which they can be approached and corrected is through the Press. Therefore, somehow or other, instruction in how to cat and drink wisely; how to exercise and how to clothe the body, must be conveyed through the newspapers.
All sensible people desire that the medical profession should keep to its noble tradition of reticence. If it is to retain respect and trust it must never resort to the cheap arts of personal advertisement. It must have strict regulations and customs in this matter, and we for our part shall always be inclined to forgive the doctors if they err on the side of pedantry in making their traditions secure. But it simply cannot be right that the nation should have a much lower standard of health than it might have in order that doctors may flatter themselves that their etiquette is untarnished. There must be something wrong with a system in which that happens.
As a protest against a dangerous obscurantism several eminent doctors helped recently to form the New Health Society, which is making a wide use of publicity. Now we have Sir Thomas Horder (who, if rumour is correct; is not well pleased with the New Health Society) laying it down in an address to the St. Pancras division of the British Medical Association that the time for a greater use of publicity has arrived. He- suggests that a committee should be formed and that editors of newspapers as well as doctors should be members of it. The committee would pass articles intended for publication in the lay Press. It would, in fact, provide a censorship. Sir Thomas Horder thinks that the authority of a well-chosen committee would satisfy all newspaper . readers, though the com- munications sanctioned for publication would be anony- mous. " The lay Press," he said, " must not clamour for signed articles by men in active practice."
Commenting on this proposal, Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane said that the Press would never stand such a committee, and that it would be useless. We dare say he is right. Newspapers always want to publish articles of their own choice. They would not smile upon a professional censorship which might easily run to a new kind of pedantry. But though several members of the New Health Society seem to be far from satisfied with Sir Thomas Horder's concessions, we prefer to regard the fact that such concessions are being. made as very im- portant. We sincerely hope that the opportunity of arriving at some practical methods of publicity will not be obscured by a fruitless wrangling.
It is conceivably necessary to prohibit doctors in active practice from contributing signed articles to the lay Press, but there can surely be no objection to a doctor of established reputation who has almost retired from practice giving the public the benefit of free advice. For example, the Daily Mail is publishing a series of articles containing simple suggestions for health by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane. The President of the New Health Society has obviously got nothing to gain in either esteem or practice by writing for the Daily Mail. The point is that his name carries weight. His articles will be read and believed when anonymous exhortations on medical themes might fail.
A great opportunity ought not to be lost for the mere love of fighting. Could there not be a conference to discover how much common ground there is ?
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