Medical Research and the Medical Rackets

In their "reorganization" of the A.M.A. it was natural that "Doc" Simmons and his gang should consider medical research primarily from the commercial angles—advertising, publicity and resultant profits. With those objectives in mind, they proceeded to fasten their grip on research by means of every agency that they controlled. It is not surprising, therefore, that supposedly humanitarian research is now often a blind for commercialism and racketeering.

The history of the attitude of organized medicine toward medical research, even before this period, was quite shameful. Few of the significant medical discoveries, which were to change the entire future of the field, had been made by doctors. The majority of these discoveries were made by laymen.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO MEDICINE BY LAYMEN

Digitalis, for instance, was given to medicine by herb-women who recognized the virtue of foxglove concoctions in dropsy. It was pooh-poohed for centuries by the stupidly dogmatic and bombastic "doctors" who insisted that the empirical and traditional teaching of Hippocrates and Galen embodied all that there was to be known about medicine.

Vaccination that has resulted in the wiping out of the plague of smallpox was contributed by the shrewd observation and common-sense of the farmer and dairy folks. It was belatedly introduced into medicine by Edward Jenner. The "learned" medical profession bitterly opposed its use.

The germ theory of the origin of disease and vaccination against rabies were contributed by a chemist, Louis Pasteur.

MEDICAL "LEADERS" RIDICULED PASTEUR

The recent dramatization of the life of Pasteur has focused public attention on the hard path that confronts a research worker striking out into untrodden fields of science. Pasteur was fortunate in that he lived to see his work accepted, his struggles vindicated, and to enjoy the relatively scant and belated rewards of a scientist. He was fortunate in that the persecution to which he was subjected merely caused an apoplectic stroke and partial paralysis. Semmel Weiss, who discovered the origin of childbirth fever, was of weaker fiber. He was driven to raving insanity by the bitter persecution of his ignorant and intolerant confreres.

The discoveries of Pasteur were so patently correct that they are now accepted as obvious and axiomatic. It helps in understanding the mechanism whereby "leaders" of medicine mislead their colleagues and the public into believing untrue what is obviously true, and vice versa, to consider Pasteur's experiences.

The performance is as absurd as that of Petruchio, who in taming Katherine, the shrew, compelled her to call white "black" and black "white." The misleaders of medicine "tame" the balance of the profession. They exert over the profession a control gained by fair means and foul, to be used for whatever purposes they wish—often for selfish commercial and malevolent purposes.

The medical and scientific "leaders" of the Academie Francaise labeled "false" Pasteur's magnificent experimental work and his brilliant discoveries regarding disease. They did so in spite of the fact that they well knew that they were thereby condemning a man far more able and brilliant than themselves—a man who had saved for France several industries from disasters with which they had not been able to cope.

The proof of his discoveries which Pasteur offered the members of the Academie Francaise is the very proof that we now regard as thoroughly convincing. The "Immortals" refused even to glance at it. They insisted, without ever looking or listening, that Pasteur could have no proof for what they labeled "absurd ideas." None are more blind than those who will not see.

The "Immortals" followed a time-honored, traditional method of discrediting medical discovery. They refused to recognize obvious truth, because it stamped them as ignoramuses and fools. It hurt their vanity to be taught by a mere chemist. To recognize him and his work would mean the surrender of their falsely assumed positions as authorities, and possible damage to their practices.

It is gruesome to think of how many lives were needlessly cut short by the ignorance, stupidity, vanity, and greed of the medical "authorities," the "Immortals" of the Academie Francaise. If souls they had, these "Immortals" must be well content with the oblivion into which they have fallen. For their only alternative is to stand enshrined as samples of the blithering idiots who play the game of medical politics and set themselves up as "authorities" and false prophets. They have their counterparts in each generation of medical politicians.

SUPPRESSION OF DISCOVERIES COSTS LIVES

One of the saddest phases of this suppression and persecution of Pasteur and of brilliant and capable scientists of each successive generation, is the damage done to mankind by the injury Inflicted on these rare individuals. Their genius, if fostered and left to roam through the fields of science, would save mankind much misery.

Denied recognition and opportunity to do their work, ridiculed, heckled, Persecuted, hampered and tormented by the professional rabble, these geniuses wear themselves out by straining at a dual leash—their inner urge, and the obstacles thrown in their path by the mercenary pack of asses and hypocrites that constitute professional authorities.

The world has good reason to be thankful that Pasteur survived these obstacles and persecutions with merely a wound, partial paralysis. How much greater might have been his attainments and benefactions to mankind if he had been spared the need of conflict with "medical authority," we can only surmise. The ideas of a genius and his discoveries may be suppressed; or they may be stolen by medical and scientific hijackers. But in practice, the world discourages, destroys, and loses the source of this spring of inspired thoughts and ideas. There is no greater enemy of medical science and its advance than the established "authority" supported by organized medicine. This has been true with rare exceptions throughout history.

MEDICINE'S IGNORANCE VS. WISDOM OF TRADITION

In the present century the work of the biologic chemists in the field of food and nutrition was ridiculed by organized medicine. Informed and thinking men who recognized the value of this work and adopted it in the prevention and treatment of human disease, were assailed and labelled faddists and quacks. Such men as Bernard MacFadden and Alfred W. McCann have done more to introduce a sane mode of eating and living than whole packs of medical "authorities." With sound common-sense they trusted the age-old folklore and tradition of health and medicine, and observation of man, and enunciated truths which were not accepted by pompous and dull-witted "medical science" until it could understand the confirmation of rats and guinea pigs.

In spite of advances made during the past century, medicine and biology have scarcely begun to scratch the surface of their basic sciences. It is upon the foundation of these sciences and upon medical research that medicine's future of service to mankind depends. There are few, if any, of even the commoner ailments of mankind that have been studied more than superficially by modern medical science. "Colds," for instance, are little less a riddle today, than they were to the primitive medicine of Hippocrates and Galen, many centuries ago. The Yogis of ancient India understood them better than do our modern "scientists"; and they taught correctly that proper breathing, "Pramayana" they called the exercises, is essential for good health. So fundamental a matter as the body's use and exchange of water, which constitutes over 80 percent of its substance, barely has been explored.

Many of the things which have been accepted as facts by modern medical science, on further study and deeper knowledge, have proved to be dangerous half-truths, or wholly untrue. And on the other hand, many of the medical ideas and remedies which have evolved through the ages on the basis of clinical observation and judgment have been rejected categorically as "empiric" and valueless by young and arrogant "medical science"; merely to be readopted when this pseudo-science had learned enough to realize its errors and limitations.

Numerous such instances might be quoted. Thus ma-huang, an herb which has been used by the Chinese since time immemorial, was abandoned by modem "scientific" medicine as utterly valueless. Within the past decade, Dr. Chen, a young Chinese pharmacologist, isolated from ma-huang one of our most powerful and valuable drugs, ephedrine. In addition to a number of other valuable actions, ephedrine is now used to cause constriction of blood vessels and to control hemorrhage.

MEDICINE'S INTOLERANCE

Half a century ago, medical science read with intolerant amusement the list of remedies which Macbeth's witches placed in the cauldron:

Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Today this passage finds its counterpart in the catalogue of any pharmaceutical house marketing biologic and endocrine products.

These instances might be multiplied indefinitely. But they suffice to show how necessary it is for human welfare that medical research continuously explore new fields of science while not ignoring tradition.

The meaning of the traditional display of ignorance, bigotry, intolerance and stupidity, in opposition to medical discovery becomes more obvious from a study of the real and fictitious discoveries that have been accepted quickly—sometimes too quickly,

"DISCOVERERS" OF LIVER THERAPY IN ANEMIA

The use of liver in the treatment of anemia is an old household remedy that was scorned by "scientific" medicine. A number of inquiring students in the first two decades of this century confirmed the value of the household remedy. Their papers on the subject were barred from effective publication in the widely read medical journals controlled by the A.M.A. Dr. Victor Heiser states in "You're the Doctor," on the authority of the eminent pathologist, Dr. Wm. G. MacCallum:

". . . A man named William B. Castle had worked out why people would recover from anemia if they ate liver. But he was too late in publishing the result of his work."

Three medical school professors, Minot, Murphy, and Whipple, whose influence in the circles of organized medicine is indicated by their positions, announced the "discovery" of the value of liver in the treatment of anemia. They received a Nobel prize for the discovery, and drug firms coined fortunes from the sale of liver concoctions.

"DISCOVERY" OF PNEUMONIA "CURE"

Medical research institutes became interested in the subject of the treatment of pneumonia about two decades ago. Research workers characteristically remained in the rut of orthodox medical thought regarding infection and immunity. Dr. Cronin has portrayed in "The Citadel" the dangers to which original thought exposes research workers. Diphtheria antitoxic serum and the immunologic concepts of Ehrlich have established the beaten path for the quest of the means of conquest of infections. Stubbornly and slavishly the workers followed that path in the quest of a serum for the treatment of pneumonia.

It was found at the start that pneumococcus germs could be grouped, on the basis of chemical reactions in the test tube, into four groups or types. These types were later found to owe their individual peculiarities to the overcoat, or capsule, with which Nature provides them. The death-rate of the disease caused by these types of germs varies widely. The highest death-rate is caused by what is known as group three.

Serums were prepared for each of these types of germs by their injection into horses or rabbits. When patients were treated with them, it was found that there was no material difference in the death-rate as compared with the untreated cases.

Though of practically no value in the prevention of death from pneumonia, the serum itself may cause menace to the health and life of the patient, as may any other serum.

The research workers in the field refused to acknowledge the obvious failure of the anti-pneumococcus serums. Their position and influence enabled them to maintain themselves as "authorities" and to force the acceptance of their obviously erroneous views. They created numerous refinements in the typing of germs which progressively increased the number of types from four to over thirty. This enabled them to place the blame for the failure of the serum on the method of typing. The greater number of types made it more readily possible to manipulate the results obtained in such manner as to make the serum appear a bit more successful. But the total death-rate of all types of pneumonia was not materially reduced.

On the basis of this "statistical approach" anti-pneumococcus serum was advertised to both the medical profession and the public as a success. The scrum was "accepted" by the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association and gained a place as a supposedly reliable remedy. Censorship of medical news in the lay press by organized medicine and its allies enabled intensive publicity in favor of the serum.

PNEUMONIA SERUM BUSINESS

From the financial viewpoint, anti-pneumococcus serum has been a huge success to its marketers. A highly lucrative business in the sale of the serum has been built up by a number of drug concerns. Among them is Lederle Laboratories which is a subsidiary of American Cyanamid Co. Whether one of the earlier sponsors of the serum, the Rockefeller Institute, has any of the stock of these concerns among its holdings is not known; for the Rockefeller Institute, in sharp contrast with the Rockefeller Foundation, refuses to publish a list of its stock holdings.

Especially good business are the sales of the serums to health departments. Thus New York, following a campaign in the New York Post, appropriated in one year one hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of anti-pneumococcus serum. Presumably, it was intended for distribution to the needy. Lederle Laboratories sold the serum to the City.

Health departments have established special divisions for pneumonia which are charged with the distribution of the serum. The divisions do their utmost to make a statistical and business success of the serum.

There is a surprising uniformity in the price charged for the serum by the various manufacturers. Thanks to this price fixing, it has been estimated that the average cost of serum for the treatment of a case of pneumonia is seventy-two dollars. This cost amounts to almost twice the average cost of medical care per family per year. Obviously, serum is a good business proposition.

A REAL PNEUMONIA REMEDY

In 1937 a group of physicians, among whom was myself, discovered that substances of the sulphanilamide group would cut short an attack of pneumonia. I subsequently discovered that if a proper diet factor, nicotinic acid, is given simultaneously, unbelievable and miraculous cures can be effected. I made the discovery on a seventy-two-year-old patient who was suffering from what appeared to be a hopeless attack of type three pneumonia. The discovery saved his life.

It was this finding that constituted the basis for the development in England of sulfapyridine, the widely advertised "specific" for pneumonia. The use of sulfapyridine, however, is fraught with such dangers as the formation of kidney stones. It is not nearly as satisfactory as my combined use of sulphanilamide and nicotinic acid.

The development of sulphanilamide and sulfapyridine threatened the profits of the manufacturers of the "curative" anti-pneumococcus serum. They actually did accomplish the cures that could not be obtained with the serum.

Lederle Laboratories obtained for a time a monopoly of the public sale of sulfapyridine in the United States. Since the drug costs about seventy-five cents a pound to produce and is sold at the rate of about two hundred dollars a pound, the profits are fairly satisfactory from the viewpoint of the drug industry. Legal barriers of the Pure Food and Drug Act were conveniently let down for this drug in spite of the fact that it presents some menaces to health. Thanks to the influence of the sponsoring financial interests, the drug received free nation-wide publicity and immediately yielded high financial returns.

Lederle's initial monopolistic control of sulfapyridine proved fortunate for the stimulation of continued use of anti-pneumococcus serum. The advertising and literature that has been issued by the firm creates the impression that the serum is essential for the life-saving action of sulfapyridine. The lucrative serum business still thrives. Within one year the Lederle Laboratories quadrupled the size of its plant. Now that the serum business is threatened by public realization of its lack of value, it is reported that Lederle is considering the conversion its plant to the manufacture of explosives.

PROFITS OF MEDICAL RESEARCH AND THE A.M.A.

These instances prove how well "Doc" Simmons and his gang have used their control of the A.M.A. to make of medical research a lucrative, subsidiary, commercial racket. In this activity they have had two important allies, drug manufacturers and research foundations.

The interest of the drug manufacturers in medical research is obvious. They seek to increase profits by new discoveries or their suppression. Patents and the commercial value of medical research explain why in the past several decades medicine's greatest advances have been in the field of chemistry and endocrinology. The profits made on the newer chemical and glandular preparations are unbelievably large. Thus synthetic male sex hormone costs a few dollars a pound to produce and sells by "international agreement" which means at the behest of the German Dye Trust, at fifty thousand dollars a pound. Synthetic thyroxine, an active principle of the thyroid gland, costs even less to manufacture and sells at the rate of thirty-five thousand dollars a pound.

The A.M.A. has helped materially in increasing drug profits through its "acceptance," or testimonial, and its advertising rackets. This is well illustrated by the case of thyroxine.

Thyroxine was originally isolated from the gland substance by Dr. Kendall, a member of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry. The patents were purchased by Squibb & Company. Biologically derived thyroxine sold at the price of thirty-five thousand dollars a pound. Professor Harrington, of the University of London, first determined the correct formula of thyroxine and succeeded in preparing it synthetically and patented the method. Thyroxine, synthetically prepared, costs about ten dollars a pound to manufacture.

False attacks branding the synthetic product as worthless were published in journals controlled by the A.M.A. The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry held up the "acceptance" of synthetic thyroxine.

The patents were sold to a firm which agreed to maintain the price of the product at the same level as the biologic product, and to supply it to houses which marketed the biologic product exclusively. Synthetic thyroxine then was "accepted."

New discoveries enable the preparation of thyroxine still less expensively from cheese and iodine. The patents are controlled by the German Dye Trust and the price of the product is maintained at the same level as the costly biologic product.

COMMERCIAL INFLUENCES IN RESEARCH

Quite as important as increasing profits, for drug manufacturers, is avoidance of loss or elimination of competition. For this purpose medical research or its publication often must be suppressed. The censorship of medical news in the press, that has been jointly established by organized medicine and social service, is quite effective in suppressing the work of the independent research worker; and the subsidized worker is readily held in check when his results conflict with commercial interests.

In studies on the influence of proteins on growth, Dr. E.V. McCollum, in his "Newer Knowledge of Nutrition," stated that grain proteins are superior to milk. Dr. McCollum was then made a highly paid research consultant of the National Dairy Products. In 1914, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, he reversed himself and stated that the proteins of grains were inferior to milk. In 1919, their inferiority had dropped to one-third or one-half that of milk and eggs. And in 1921, he reported protein of milk distinctly superior to that of grains.

The distinguished pharmacologist, Professor John J. Abel, of Johns Hopkins University, delivered before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in December, 1933, a presidential address on the subject of poisons. He alluded to the poisonous effects of an excess of Vitamin D, in pre-presentation releases of his speech to the press. For some reason he found it advisable not to include that passage in his address when delivered. With the isolated exception of the dispatches of Mr. G.B. Lai, of the Universal Service, the passage was omitted from all reports of the speech.

What may be the possible reasons can be inferred from a consideration of the matter. The Steenbock patents for the preparation of Vitamin D constitute the basis of a large and profitable pharmaceutical business which yields a revenue to the University of Wisconsin. Under other patents for enriching bread with vitamin D, held by a baking concern, Columbia University receives an income.

Vitamin D may cause damage to the brain and idiocy in the infant by premature ossification of the sutures of the skull; or by ossification of the kidneys cause death. In the adult, when continually ingested in even moderate doses, it may cause arteriosclerosis and chronic catarrhal affections.

Those papers which published the reports of Professor Abel's unread statements on the dangers of vitamin D, received protesting letters from the company marketing vitamin D bread. These letters protested against the damage done them by the publication of the truth regarding the dangers of an excessive intake of vitamin D. The bakery letter was accompanied by an ambiguous and evasive letter by Dr. E.V. McCollum, professor at Johns Hopkins University, who is now employed by various concerns engaged in the marketing of food.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES OF ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE

The commercial interests and alliances of research institutions are less obvious but are quite as real as those of the drug manufacturers, when they are not identical. The establishment of the Rockefeller Institute marked the firm saddling of big business and its methods on medical research. From the start an alliance was formed with the American Medical Association.

An amusing story is told concerning the establishment of the Institute. The expose of the methods which signalized the development of the Standard Oil fortunes, at the turn of this century, had made life dangerous and intolerable for John D. Rockefeller and his family, and had made of his name an anathema, John D. decided that something must be done to make himself more palatable to the public.

At this juncture, Fred T. Gates entered as almoner and publicity agent, to gild and varnish the name of Rockefeller. He was told, according to reports, that any sums expended in the process must bring financial returns equal to those which would be earned by the same sums invested in oil enterprises. John D. was in a position to know that it could be done in the medical business. His father, "Doc" William A. Rockefeller, had earned a living with his petroleum oil, quack, patent cancer cures and medicine shows.

Aside from the political and diplomatic advantages derived by the Rockefeller interests from the Institute, that have been recounted, it is obvious that they receive more direct and tangible returns from it. The Institute denies that it receives any royalties from the medical discoveries, drugs and processes that are patented by it. But that does not mean that it does not receive payment in stock of the licensed companies and dividends from such stock. The refusal of the Rockefeller Institute to make public its stock holdings make it impossible to determine this.

At any rate the Standard Oil interests and the Institute derive revenues from holdings of chemical and dye stocks. This includes holdings in the German dye trust, the I.G. Farbenindustrie and others, that interlock with the entire mesh work of chemical industries. The Rockefeller interests were represented by Walter C. Teagle, of the Standard Oil of New Jersey, on the board of directors of the American I.G. which interlocks ownership with many of the leading "American" drug companies.

ANTI-VENEREAL DRUG AND BLINDNESS

An interesting drug from the viewpoint of the present anti-venereal campaign is tryparsamide. According to the legend appearing on the packages, it is "manufactured by Merck & Co., . . . under license of the Rockefeller Institute For Medical Research." Tryparsamide is a dangerous arsenical product, the use of which had been abandoned by Paul Ehrlich, its discoverer, many years ago because it so frequently causes hopeless blindness by optic nerve atrophy. In spite of its dangerous character it is being extensively used in the current anti-syphilis campaign, though it possesses no proved advantage over many safer arsenical preparations. Eye specialists are employed in the venereal clinics to watch for signs of blindness in patients being treated with tryparsamide.

JEALOUS INTRIGUE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

Some perspective of the situation in medical research can be gained from a report prepared by Dr. S.S. Goldwater on the subject of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine at Leningrad (published in Science, Vol. 79, p. 206.)

"Bureaucratic dangers are encountered in every large organization, and it requires the utmost vigilance to avert them. I have no doubt that at the institute at Leningrad, precautions will be taken to prevent the blighting influence of too rigid control of the younger workers by leaders, however eminent, whose interests are fixed upon untimely or passing phases of science. I could point to scientific centers in other countries, where there has grown up among those occupying ranking positions an unfortunate sense of self-satisfaction, an inclination to continue in well-worn grooves and a disposition to look with suspicion upon resourceful thinkers and workers, who, for personal, social, or political reasons have not commended themselves to those in charge as congenial co-workers. No one knows what science and humanity have lost through the failure of the civilized countries of the world to provide adequate opportunities for all their budding geniuses."

Dr. Goldwater's report depicts mildly the havoc that has been wrought in medical science by the research racket. Sinclair Lewis's "Arrowsmith" depicts the rare exception of the medical research worker who succeeds in overcoming the obstacles placed in his way by the racket.

The capable and fertile research worker in medicine, as in other fields, is the exception and a relative rarity. He differs from the average run of graduates in medicine in that he possesses a knowledge of the subject deep and wide enough to realize its limitations, has energy and ambition enough to attempt to override those limitations, and possesses an imagination vivid enough to discern the means and methods of so doing. Thus he is by nature a rebel against accepted medical thought, which of necessity implies a conflict with established medical authority.

As if this were not sufficient handicap for the ambitious medical research worker, many other medical and social service, political obstacles are placed in his way today. It has been related how research and discovery, honest or faked, has come to be regarded as having direct or indirect commercial, advertising and publicity value, and as such it is jealously coveted by the political bosses of medicine for themselves, and equally fiercely resented and disparaged in others.

This situation was aptly described by Dr. Ellice McDonald, director of the Biochemical Foundation, in a paper read before the Franklin Institute on December 12, 1936.

"I have found," he stated, "that the University men who made up the workers (of university research laboratories) were very jealous of their plans and results, as they considered their advancement in the university to be dependent upon their reputation as gained by publication, and their results were their stock in trade . The jealousies and antagonism of the cancer research workers in this country have delayed the cure of cancer many years."

This last idea of antagonism was more clearly expressed by William M. Malisoff, Editor of Philosophy of Science, in a letter to the New York Times. He wrote:

"How can we leave the struggle (of medical research) to scattered individuals and small ill-supported groups who just plainly hate one another!"

But the solution which he offered was quite absurd and would merely aggravate the condition. Instead of suggesting some method of creating complete freedom of research Malisoff revealed his totalitarian bent by advocating the destruction of freedom and the substitution of Committee control that accentuates all the evils of the present methods. The belief that some folks have in the possibility of changing human nature merely by changing the name of the form of government to "Socialism" is extremely naive.

There is reason for belief that the bitter partisanship of the football rivalries may sometimes enter into the scientific antagonisms of university groups. Thus the work of Wever and Bray, of Princeton, on the transmission of sound by the auditory nerve of cats was attacked and unjustly undermined for a while by the attacks of Davis and Lurie, of Harvard, at the time that football relations between the two universities were severed. At about the same time the splendid work of Swingle, of Princeton, was unjustly attacked and discredited, thus robbing him of the honors due him.

REGIMENTATION OF RESEARCH

Regimentation of research by the organization of "research committees" has been suggested as a remedy for the situation. It is especially favored by radicals, totalitarians, and by social service allies. Prominent among its advocates are the American Association of Science Writers and Waldemar Kaempffert of the New York Times.

Kaempffert would have us believe with Professor Alfred Kroeber: "The genius simply realizes the aspirations of society." He gives in evidence the statement of Professor William F. Ogburn that "145 major scientific discoveries and inventions were made simultaneously and independently by two or more men." For the totalitarian radical this justifies regimentation and destruction of Individual freedom.

Unfortunately these ideas are belied by experience. There has been surprisingly little "simultaneous discovery" among institutions and committees in spite of the "aspirations of society," unless one gives that name to theft of ideas and discoveries, or commonplace scientific hijacking.

THE SUPPRESSION OF RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY

Now, research committees, which are generally dominated by the A.M.A. and the social service rackets, are extremely effective devices for the suppression or theft of ideas and discoveries. They usurp and monopolize research funds from all sources, research facilities, laboratories, hospitals, clinics, and publication media. They also engineer censorship of the press in their respective fields, force their acceptance as ultimate authorities, set themselves up as dictators of "accepted practice" which has the cogent force of legal status, and advertise and publicize themselves and their practices.

They are the Grand Inquisitors of Medical Science. They are in excellent position to protect their commercial interests and to destroy "interloping" medical discoverers who might arise to offer challenge to their assumed omniscience and authority. The members of the committees generally earn large incomes by doing the scientific chores of allied commercial interests.

The committees are ideally adapted to protect the established medico-political order and to bar any threat of upset by independent medical discoverers. By virtue of their position as "authorities," the public and the press accept their verdicts. They can affirm or discredit any new discoveries, and from their verdict there is no recourse. They may suppress the announcement of discoveries and subsequently steal them and publish them in the name of the committee or of its members. A case of this type already has been cited. Few physicians would dare challenge such thefts, even though they might be subject to proof. This is the significance of Dr. MacCallum's statement on the subject that is quoted by Dr. Heiser:

"He said that it had struck him while going through medical literature how sad it was that one never heard of the people who did the real work (of research and discovery) on many diseases."

This has been brought about deliberately by medical merchants and their organizations.

Little hesitancy is shown by these groups, often, in the use of the foulest tactics for destroying discoverers and discoveries which threaten injury to their interests or purses. Libel and slander are systematically used in these campaigns of vilification. They are waged by word of mouth, by telephone, by radio, in interviews, and by syndicated columns—in the medical, scientific, and lay press.

Examples of such committees are as numerous as are the special phases of medicine. The American Otologic Society, for instance, monopolizes the funds and facilities for research in deafness. The millions of dollars which it has collected from the public have been frittered away in building up a political machine in the specialty, in drawing up a worthless and politically censored bibliography of deafness and in commercial exploitation of deafness. But nothing has been done for the relief of the deaf.

"COMMITTEE RESEARCH" IN OTOLOGY

In the field of otology and of the ear, "committee research" is an old and well established practise. How such research operates is illustrated by the manner in which the "accepted" views regarding the transmission of sound into the ear were established. For over a half century, an active scientific controversy raged between two schools of thought and groups of scientists. One group was led by Professor Helmholtz and Professor Pollitzer, the former the most eminent physicist of his day, and the latter, father of modern otology. This group believed and attempted to prove by experiments, now realized to be crude in the extreme, that sound is transmitted into the inner ear by the tiny bones of the ear only. This view is obviously wrong because sound is transmitted to the ear even when those bones are destroyed or missing. The other group with less distinguished leaders adduced considerable proof that sound was transmitted to the ear through other channels.

The controversy had become quite acrimonious. Scientific evidence proved neither view conclusively to the satisfaction of the other group, however obvious the case might be that the ossicles were not essential for transmission of sound into the ear. Professor Pollitzer and a committee of his supporters decided to force the issue. At a congress of otologists in Berlin in the early 1890's, they made the theory a political issue and put it to a vote. Professor Pollitzer and his committee won because of their political influence and the support of Helmholtz. Until the present day, every text book carries the false statement that the tiny bones of the middle ear are essential for the transmission of sound to the inner ear and for hearing; in spite of the fact that millions of humans, who hear without those bones, prove the contrary. Few ear specialists or scientists engaged in the study of the ear dare question this dogma or gospel of otology. Those who do are rapidly squelched.

AMERICAN OTOLOGIC SOCIETY

The same spirit prevails today in the American Otological Society. The Society has raised funds by public subscription for otologic research but operates as a private and exclusive club for a clique of otologic bosses. It serves primarily to aggrandize them and to boost their businesses. Thus when it began its campaign to raise funds, Dr. Arthur Duel, boss of the Society, announced in a publicity release in the New York World on June 9, 1929, that he was "considered the greatest ear specialist in the world.

Though the Society itself has done little to further the knowledge of deafness, it does attempt to suppress discovery and maintain dogma dictated by it. This is illustrated by an experience of mine. In 1934 I reported in Science an interesting improvement in hearing observed in a series of cases of progressive deafness in which air had been injected into the spine for purposes of diagnosis. I offered the hypothesis that possibly these cases presented adhesions of the meningeal membranes and localized accumulations of fluid in the brain cisterns which exerted pressure on the auditory nerve tracts; and that these were released by the air pressure.

Shortly after this publication I received the following note from Dr. Edmund Prince Fowler, officer of the American Otological Society, chief in otology at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, and consultant in otology to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company:

"Dear Dr, Josephson:

"I saw a quotation from Science about otosclerosis from meningeal adhesions, cysts, etc. I have autopsy slides of many cases of otosclerosis and no indications such as you mention. . . It might be well to write Science correcting the impression made by the quotation in question.

"Edmund Prince Fowler."

ASSUMPTION OF OMNISCIENCE

This letter demonstrates the spirit of authoritarianism and the assumption of omniscience which is as usual as it is unwarranted. It would be absurd to expect that microscopic slides would show up massive accumulations of fluid in the meningeal cisterns which are destroyed in the process of securing the pathologic specimens. I replied as follows:

"Dear Dr. Fowler:

"I am a bit puzzled by your discussion of the news reports of my preliminary note published in a recent issue of Science. . . You state that on the basis of your autopsy slides you have failed to note any cases of meningeal adhesions and cysts in otosclerosis and consequently doubt my findings in progressive deafness and . . . 'so-called otosclerosis.' It is an interesting fact that a number of the cases which constituted the basis of this study were diagnosed as 'otosclerosis' by eminent colleagues and given a hopeless prognosis. If my memory serves me correctly, one of them was a case which you yourself so diagnosed and prognosed. . . .

"If your statement is to be interpreted to mean that meningeal adhesions do not occur in deafness, because you have not found them in 'otosclerosis,' it contradicts the fact that we all know that deafness occurs in meningitis and that meningeal adhesions are often found in meningitis . . .

"If your statement is to be interpreted as signifying that no adhesions were found in cases which you diagnosed as 'otosclerosis' and autopsied, it is a bit more understandable. What puzzles me is what criteria of diagnosis you use clinically to differentiate the cases of progressive deafness which on autopsy you found presented the pathologic picture for which alone I am inclined to reserve the diagnosis otosclerosis. Also I am puzzled to understand how you explain away the finding of otosclerosis in cases which present no deafness.

"Possibly presentation of the data, before one of our specialty organizations would be in order. But unfortunately those organizations are such rackets and monopolies that it is generally impossible for those not in the inner ring to get an opportunity to present significant discoveries.

"E. M. Josephson."

Confirmation of the validity of my hypothesis has been offered by the discovery of similar conditions about the optic nerve causing cases of blindness that recover vision on release of the adhesions and re-establishment of free flow of the fluid. The American Otological Society does not encourage research work except in directions outlined by the committees of the Society for which the membership can claim full credit. All other work is disregarded or discredited, when possible, in the interest of preserving the prestige of the members of the Society. The research fund has done much, however, to create hereditary dynasties in otology and to subsidize the advancement of sons of the Society's bosses. But it has materially retarded the advance of otology.

The only product of this so-called otological research has been the brutal exploitation of the deaf by the Lempert Fenestration ("Window") Operation. These operations have lined the purses of the ring leaders of otology; and the brutal malpractice has completely deafened and maimed a multitude of victims. The story of this operation and its exploitation is told in the Appendix at the end of this volume.

The same is true of the National Cancer Committee and its subsidiaries. They have engineered, with the aid of the American Science Writers' Association, the official sanction and support of their activities by having Congress establish the National Advisory Cancer Council and the National Cancer Institute under their control.

FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN MEDICAL RESEARCH

I can most clearly illustrate the activities of the research committee, or cliques, and the perfection of organization introduced by Simmons and his successor, by citing my own experiences. These have taught me that the cliques cannot think of medicine except in terms of personal profit; also that the more closely the individual "leader" is identified with social service activities, the more mercenary are his motives.

For medical research and discovery I found that I had a natural aptitude. As a result, in a career of over two decades I have made one hundred and eighteen discoveries. The first, made while still a medical student, was a simple and obvious method of diagnosing malignancy of cancer from tissue sections. It was published in the Medical Record in 1917. Credit and acclaim for this discovery has gone to one of the shining lights of a committee on cancer.

This initial work was followed by publication of an accidentally discovered method of causing a flare-up of latent leprosy that enabled its recognition. There then followed in rapid succession a series of discoveries in connection with the eyes, ears, nose, and throat. These researches were done at my own expense and were published in medical journals in all parts of the world, including the journals published by the American Medical Association, of which I had become a member. The discoveries gained for me recognition as a scientist and fellowship in national specialty and scientific societies. My work was listed in the fifth edition of the American Men of Science.

A CRUSADER RESIGNS FROM THE A.M.A.

During my membership in the American Medical Association, I consistently attacked corrupt medical politics. I became one of the original advocates of the idea of group medical care at a fixed annual fee, and organized a sizeable group of physicians for that purpose. My articles on the topic of medical organization were widely published, many in the columns of the Medical Week, the official magazine of the New York County Medical Society. In an article in Liberty magazine of April 5, 1930, entitled "Doctors and Their Ethics," Grace Robinson quoted extensively from my articles that had been published in medical channels on the subject of medical corruption. This brought down on me an editorial attack by Fishbein in the Journal of the American Medical Association which libelously asserted that I was "the would-be leader of the Bolshevik movement in American medicine."

In 1931, I vigorously attacked the sale of the worthless and dangerous infantile paralysis "convalescent serum" and compelled its abandonment after it had caused many deaths. Indignant at the failure of the Association to act to protect the public from it, I resigned in December 1931.

OSTRACISM, LIBEL AND SUPPRESSION FOLLOW

Shortly after my resignation, the publications controlled by the A.M.A. and its subsidiaries were closed to me. My letters on medical politics were flatly rejected by the editor of the Medical Week, the local county medical publication. I and my scientific work were calumnied and slandered both to the profession and to the public. No effort was spared to damage my professional and scientific reputation. This has resulted, unfortunately, in more serious injury to the public than to myself, as I will make clear.

In 1933, I brought to light the widespread prevalence of impairment of vision due to malnutrition, especially to deficiency of vitamin A. This condition was then supposed to be non-existent in the United States. My report entitled "Effects of Depression on the Vision of Children" was the first intimation of its prevalence published in this country. It would have been possible for me to secure aid for these children in the form of an adequate diet, if the representatives of the New York Academy of Medicine and of social service agencies engaged in eye work, Drs. Conrad Berens, Le Grand Hardy and Daniel Kirby, had not withheld their confirmation and approval. Three years later my findings had been repeatedly confirmed. The damage had been done and the situation had greatly improved, thanks to rising employment. Only then did the social service clique first voice cognizance of the problems of nutrition that had become a mere academic question.

At this time there appeared the textbook "Diseases of the Eye" edited by Conrad Berens and written by "eighty-two international authorities." In this book a few lines sufficed to relate all that these "authorities" had to tell about the already large science of the influence of diet on the eyes and vision.

GLAUCOMA BECOMES A POLITICAL FOOTBALL

About that time I discovered the cause and remedy of primary glaucoma, one of the most frequent causes of hopeless blinding of adults. The method of treatment is medical, with cortin, the hormone of the adrenal cortex gland. It eliminates largely the blinding glaucoma operations from which many of the leaders of ophthalmology derive a large part of their incomes. They therefore undertook to suppress my sight-saving discovery.

An article on the glaucoma discovery submitted to the Journal of the A.M.A. was rejected. When I published an announcement of the discovery in the magazine Science, it was widely publicized in the daily press throughout the country and came to the attention of thousands of sufferers who might have benefited from the treatment. They rushed to their physicians who knew nothing about it because it bad been suppressed in their medical journals. To protect their reputations they condemned as worthless the method concerning which they knew absolutely nothing. In their denials was mixed the element of revenge for the humiliation which they suffered due to their ignorance of the method. That was the result of suppression of publication of my work in medical channels.

Illustrative of the profound ignorance of a supposed authority on the subject was a letter written by Professor H. Maxwell Langdon, professor of ophthalmology at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He protested in the letter column of Time magazine of July 12, 1935, that "the effect of cortin as distinguished from adrenalin is not yet known"; though it had been common knowledge for almost a decade that their actions and properties are entirely different. On such false ground, he protested the publication of the discovery.

The A.M.A. machinery for discrediting medical discoveries that damage the purses of its overlords and elude its press censorship, promptly went into operation. In a syndicated column that he wrote for the N.E.A. and the Scripps Howard newspapers, Dr. Morris Fishbein attacked my glaucoma discovery and alleged that

"the observer in question had little real evidence to support his contention and . . . No one has been able to confirm his views."

This statement of Fishbein's was as devoid of truth as are many of his other "authoritative" comments. There appeared shortly thereafter my book entitled "Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment with Cortin," which was based on the successful treatment of several hundred cases of glaucoma, the largest number ever covered by a single report up to that time. Also, a brilliant confirmation of my work had been published by a prominent Western ophthalmologist in the California and Western Medical Journal. It brought down on him a warning to refrain from further confirmation of the discovery.

"AUTHORITIES" TO THE ATTACK

In October 1935 I was informed by a friendly colleague at the Cleveland Convention of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, that there was a plan afoot among the overlords of the specialty to discredit my glaucoma work, without regard to facts, because of the threat it offered to their incomes from glaucoma operations.

Soon afterward, Professor Harry S. Gradle, a member of the political coterie which dominates the eye section of the American Medical Association, forwarded for publication in Science an attack on my work. It was palpably false, for the professor had not even taken the trouble to find out what is my method of treatment. The editor of Science, Dr. J. McKeen Cattell, gave me an opportunity to reply to the attack in the same issue. In the reply I proved by the contents of Dr. Gradle's letter that the attack was false. On reading the reply, the professor wired a retraction of his attack withdrawing it from publication.

PROFESSOR WOODS STRETCHES A FEW POINTS

One month later, as a part of a concerted plan, there appeared in the Archives of Ophthalmology, which is the specialty journal published by the American Medical Association, a nasty, libelous attack on my glaucoma work and a personal attack on me by Professor Alan C. Woods, of Johns Hopkins Medical School. Professor Woods had not taken the trouble to find out what is my method of treatment before attacking it. He treated a few cases for a period of several days by a method which he assumed was mine. But it happened to be the very method which I condemn.

The professor accidentally approximated the correct method of therapy for brief periods during the treatment of his cases. During these periods he obtained brilliant, transient results which fully confirmed my own. These he overlooked, and proceeded to operate some of the cases which had given promising response. On the basis of his misapplication of the treatment the professor condemned my method as worthless and my reports as false.

BUT CONFESSES IGNORANCE

In his attack Professor Woods derided the work of Professor Swingle and Dr. Pfiffner of Princeton University on the mechanism of action of the adrenal cortex hormone, which recently has been completely confirmed. He also attacked as of questionable potency the preparation of the hormone which is marketed under the Swingle-Pfiffner patent by Parke Davis and Company, which was one of the preparations which I had effectively used. He concluded his comments on my work with the statement

"Dr. Josephson's further remarks on the relationship of the development of sex to the salt-water metabolism and to glaucoma and myopia lead us into the realms of endocrine mythology where I confess myself unable to follow."

On the basis of his confessed ignorance, Professor Woods derided my views as mythologic. Fortunately a number of research workers, including a fellow professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School, George A. Harrop, have once again proved that not all is mythologic that appears so to the less enlightened and intelligent. They have adduced evidence verifying my hypothesis on the relation of salt exchange to the sex hormones.

Dr. Woods has never had the courage, the honesty or the decency to retract the false, mean and libelous attack on me and my work. I protested to President Isaiah Bowman and the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins University this perversion of academic prestige and power, but to no avail. The situation portrays the "principles" which guide modern medical education and research and the depths of degradation to which it has fallen.

I promptly called the obvious errors to Professor Woods' attention. In his reply he tacitly acknowledged his misrepresentations regarding my method, but lamely defended his position. He agreed to request the editor of the Archives and its publishers, the A.M.A., to permit me to reply and correct the false impressions that had been created. I forwarded a reply and correction to the Archives, but its editor, Dr. Arnold Knapp, flatly refused to publish it.

DR. KNAPP GETS A CASE OF CONSCIENCE

Several months later, I was called to the Knapp Memorial Hospital to treat for Dr. Arnold Knapp a glaucoma patient, M.S_____., a Brooklyn furrier. Initially suffering from a mild case of glaucoma, he had been operated upon by Dr. Knapp five times in two months. The end result was loss of useful vision and a hopeless glaucoma that had been aggravated by the injury of the operations. I was called in consultation indirectly through a co-worker of Dr. Knapp's, Dr. Mark Schoenberg.

As a sequel to this incident, Dr. Knapp, in his capacity of editor of the Archives of Ophthalmology, invited me to submit a reply to Dr. Woods' article. This he accepted after demanding revision and elimination of the most damaging parts. Several months later, Dr, Morris Fishbein, in the capacity of managing editor of the A.M.A., overrode the editor of the Archives and barred the publication of my accepted reply.

FISHBEIN CLIQUE BARS CORRECTION OF FALSE REPORT

This episode means that Fishbein and his clique are able to misrepresent to the profession an important discovery, to keep the profession in ignorance of the facts, and to deny the victims of glaucoma a means of averting almost certain blindness. So thorough is the political organization of the profession, that with rare exception, no one would dare to use the method openly or to announce good results obtained; for the clique controls the hospitals and does not hesitate to oust and, if possible, to ruin any physician who fails to do its bidding.

The hostility of Fishbein and his clique toward me was accentuated, undoubtedly, by a publication made by Dr. George Cameron and myself before the Eugenic Research Association in June 1936, of the results of our studies on congenital effects of the dangerously poisonous dinitrophenol. It has been related how Fishbein and the A.M.A. had actively sponsored it as a "harmless" reducing drug. A resolution introduced by me, that called on the Federal Government to ban the sale of the poison, was defeated by the activities of representatives of the A.M.A. The presentation of scientific papers by members was eliminated, later, in a "reorganization" of this society. Dr. Conrad Berens, an A.M.A. henchman, alone represents the eye specialty on its board.

PROFESSOR MURLIN ATTACKS

The hostility broke out into open warfare at the June 1936 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Rochester, The Association was then still a true scientific forum where science, and not political intrigue, counted. It had not yet come under the control of the Fishbein clique. As a Fellow of the Association, I presented the results of my method in a series of several hundred cases and replied to Dr. Woods' attack.

Professor J.R. Murlin of the University of Rochester, a henchman of the A.M.A., took the floor at the end of the lecture. He pleaded not for science and the conquest of truth, but like any politician, for party regularity. He attacked me bitterly for replying to Dr. Woods, pleading his absence as a defense though the doctor had chosen to be absent with full knowledge that my paper was a reply to him. The antagonism of the A.M.A. clique was intensified because the New York Times published in full my damaging statistics on the results of glaucoma operations, the first ever compiled.

"SCIENCE" ACQUIRES A CENSOR

Infuriated by this breakdown of their censorship and their failure to suppress the publications of my discoveries, the A.M.A. clique immediately set about perfecting their machinery for the suppression of science. They demanded and secured from the A.A.A.S. an absolute censorship of all papers touching on medical topics in Science, the official publication of the Association; and I was notified that all contributions from me would be barred. They also took over control of the programs of the medical section at the semi-annual meetings of the Association, and converted it from an open forum for the announcement of medical discovery into an advertising campaign for their old war-horses. Thereafter the medical section programs consisted of "symposiums," a high-sounding title for rehashing of ancient textbook lore.

To perfect the mechanism for suppression of medical science in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the A.M.A. gang placed Dr. Harry S. Gradle, who has already been mentioned, in the position of representative for the eye specialty. Dr. McKeen Cattell, professor of physiology at Cornell University and son of the editor, and himself co-editor of Science, was drafted into membership in the New York County Medical Society and the A.M.A. Thus the A.A.A.S. became prostituted to the racketeering and politics of the A.M.A.

Drug houses were barred from continuing any mention in their literature of my glaucoma therapy or the results obtained with it. The A.M.A. denounced to the public as worthless all the adrenal cortex gland preparations marketed by reputable drug firms which I used in my work, in letters addressed to the inquiring public, in the following manner:

". . . The present evidence indicates that none of the commercial preparations of adrenal cortex extract contain appreciable amounts of the essential life-sustaining principle of the gland. All of them contain epinephrine, choline, histamine, and protein in greater or less amounts as contaminants. . ."

"Yours sincerely,

"Paul Nicholas Leech, Secretary

"Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry"

My name was removed from listing in the sixth edition of the American Men of Science, the directory published by the A.A.A.S. I was banned from publication or from presentation of my work in any channel controlled by the A.M.A. or by the A.A.A.S.

ADVERTISING CENSORSHIP AND SUPPRESSION OF THOUGHT

In the hope that some folks might thereby be saved from blindness, I wrote a book presenting the details of my method of treatment of glaucoma and the results which I had obtained entitled "Glaucoma and its Medical-Treatment With Cortin."

In the interim the A.M.A. had set up, with the aid of publishers, a censorship of science and medicine that bars the presentation in book form, of work which they wish to suppress. Book publishers submit to the censorship of the A.M.A. and its satellites and subsidiaries.

I published the book at my own expense. Newspapers that are supposedly reputable, such as the New York Times and the Journal American, and magazines, such as Time and Science, refused to accept advertisements of the book because the A.M.A., objected. This made me feel that it was a silly bit of idealism and humanitarianism that impelled me to seek to make the victims a gift of my discovery. It would have yielded me greater profits to keep my secrets and exploit them.

An advertisement of the book submitted to the New York Journal American brought the following reply:

"October 4, 1938
Dear Dr. Josephson:

"Supplementing our telephone conversation we wish to advise you that your advertisement is being withheld by our Board of Censors, pending reply from the Medical Society of the County of New York.

"Very truly yours,
I. Hunter

In reply I asked whether the County Medical Society had approved the advertisement carried by the paper of Dr. Prager's cure for deafness; and the advertisement of Carter's Liver Pills. By inference, the reply was in the affirmative.

Thus have the A.M.A. and its subsidiaries secured the full cooperation of the press in furthering their rackets and suppressing medical discovery. Freedom of thought, speech and publication, and other constitutional rights, are destroyed in medicine by the rackets built up by Simmons, his successor and their allies.

SUB-ROSA CONFIRMATION

In the course of this scientific gang warfare, two honest reports emerged to confirm my work. These offer proof that there are a few men of honor and spirit in the profession who refuse to be intimidated by the gang or to toady to it.

Professor Swingle of Princeton University is one such character. His brilliant and fundamental work on the adrenal cortex hormone is basic. He announced at a meeting of the Biologic Section of the New York Academy of Science in 1938, that my cortin treatment of glaucoma had been confirmed fully by a collaborator of his, a member of the staff of the Eye Institute of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. But the publication of this confirmatory work, the professor stated, was barred by medico-political powers.

A third confirmatory report by Dr. S.L. Haseltine, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was read by him at the annual meeting of his state medical society which is one of the few that is courageous and independent enough to denounce the corruption of its parent organization, the A.M.A. This report of Dr. Hasel tine's also gained publication in the December 1937 issue of the Journal of the Society.

In the article Dr. Haseltine confirmed my discovery of the value of adrenal cortex in the treatment of both glaucoma and near-sightedness. Since the treatment of near-sightedness does not interfere with any "accepted" surgical procedure, as does the treatment of glaucoma, Dr. A, V, Prangen of the Mayo Clinic was permitted to mention it in an article in the December 1939 issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, entitled "The Myopia Problem," In it, however, the discovery is accredited to Dr. Haseltine and no mention is made of my name which is tabooed by the A.M.A.

My work on glaucoma and the incidental work on the prevention and control of near-sightedness gained international recognition when I was invited to read papers on the subjects before the International Congress of Ophthalmology at Cairo, Egypt, in December 1937. An effort was made to suppress this presentation by the same group that has suppressed its complete publication in the U.S. to this date. They were compelled to content themselves with inducing the officials of the Gizeh Memorial Ophthalmic Hospital to repeat the absurd errors of Professor Alan C. Woods and to publish an identically false report in the 1937 official records of the Egyptian Government.

As matters now stand, my method of prevention of blindness due to glaucoma is classified falsely as discredited. It has been placed on the A.M.A. and the ophthalmologic gang's "Index Expurgatorius." And rare indeed is the physician who would dare to "sin" by trying to read about the treatment or investigate it. The day still is saved for the operating merchants-in-ophthalmology, vendors of blindness-by-operation, and for their purses.

STATISTICS TO THE RESCUE

To uphold the reputed value of glaucoma operations, statistical manipulations were necessary. In my volume, "Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment with Cortin," and in my paper read at Rochester I presented the first published results of operations on glaucoma victims by some of the leading surgeons in the country. The figures showed that fifty percent of the cases were blind after the first operation, eighty percent after the second, and all after the third. Removal of the eye after operation was necessary in over six percent of the cases. Vision was impaired and useful vision lost in the great majority of cases. My work showed that this wholesale blinding of victims of glaucoma by operation could be averted by medical treatment.

The authenticity of the report was emphasized by the fact that the name of the surgeon who operated on each case was published in the report.

The damage done by the compiling of the true data regarding the results of glaucoma operations was accentuated by their publication in the New York Times after I had presented them before the Medical Section of the A.A.A.S. in 1936, This was B.C.—Before the Censorship of the press by the A.M.A. which was imposed directly thereafter, to avert any repetition of damage to the surgical business.

A study of the results of glaucoma operations was instituted as a "survey project" by Drs. Louis Lehrfield and Jacob Reber of the Wills Hospital, Philadelphia. It was published, in the November, 1937, issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology. This study showed results little differing from those published by me, though they were interpreted, as might be expected, in favor of operations.

Such a conclusion was permitted by the fact that the survey of this eye condition interested itself in everything except how much vision was left to the patient after operation. All pertinent data with regard to vision were omitted in the publication. Believing this to be an oversight, I wrote to the authors requesting information with regard to the visual results of the operations and received no reply. The omission was not accidental.

DISCOVERIES IN PREVENTION OF BLINDNESS

Continued research enabled me to discover methods of checking the advance of near-sightedness, or of preventing its development. Shortly after that, I stumbled on a spectacularly successful method of treating a blinding disease of eye known as retinitis pigmentosa. This disease had been a complete and hopeless riddle. Easily recognized, the only information that the doctor could give the patient was that he would surely and inevitably be completely blinded after a limited time had passed. There had been no suspicion of its true cause and nature, or of any method of successfully treating the condition. I found in many cases that the injection into body muscles of carotene, the yellow coloring matter of carrots which gives rise to vitamin A and to visual purple in the body, would check the advance of this disease and would restore some of the lost vision.

This notable and important discovery was barred from publication in the journals controlled by the A.M.A., including Science. It found publication only in the scientific magazine Nature, published in England. It has been confirmed recently by Professor Tscherkes of Odessa. Professor Tscherlces' report confirming my discovery was published in the United States in abstract form in both the Journal and in the 1939 Yearbook of Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat. The discovery was attributed in these abstracts to Tscherkes and no mention was made of his statement that he was merely confirming my report.

The same fate was shared by my discoveries of the causes and remedies of other previously hopelessly blinding conditions—keratoconus and the Lawrence-Biedl-Moon syndrome. My discovery of the highly-successful method of treatment of pneumonia, as I have already related, was also suppressed in this country.

OTHER SUPPRESSED DISCOVERIES

I have related my own experiences with the suppression of medical discovery not because they are unusual in present day medicine, but because I am more intimately familiar with their details. Rarely such incidents manage to penetrate the press censorship and come to light, as in the case of the important discovery of Drs. Arthur Steinberg and William R. Brown of the Kensington Hospital, Philadelphia.

The doctors discovered that minute amounts of oxalic acid play an important role in causing blood to clot; and that injection of the acid would save the victims of hemophilia and other diseases from death by bleeding. The discovery was made all the more momentous because it contradicted what has been taught regarding the effect of oxalic acid on blood clotting. In the test-tube oxalic acid prevents clotting. But the doctors had carefully verified their observations on more than five hundred cases in a dozen Philadelphia hospitals.

The life-saving character of their discovery made it so important that the doctors sent a report of it to the magazine Science. No doubt on the advice of the omniscient A.M.A. censors, this amply verified discovery was denied publication on the ground that it was "unproved." That meant that, in their ignorance, the "Preservers of the Faith" of the A.M.A. did not believe it. In denying publication to this discovery the editors of Science had not the excuse and alibi that they have adopted to defend their refusal to publish some medical discoveries: they state that it is their policy not to publish clinical work but only experimental work which guinea pigs and other experimental animals have confirmed. Drs. Steinberg and Brown had done extensive animal experiments verifying their report. This makes it obvious that the true reason for the censorship exercised by the editors of Science is purely political.

Fortunately for the public, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology still has escaped A.M.A. control and censorship, and the doctors were able to publish their results on April 29, 1939, at its Toronto meeting. In their publication they mentioned the censorship and suppression of their work by Science and by the American Association for the "Advancement" of Science.

SUPPRESSED DISCOVERIES ARE MANKIND'S LOSS

These experiences are characteristic of those of independent research workers. The situation is mighty discouraging to the true research worker, who finds his work discredited, ignored or stolen by such political rings or committees. At the best, these seekers after the truth expect little enough reward for their work. They spend their own funds for equipment, material, and help, and give many a day to the quest for a single nugget of truth. In return for their labors to lighten the lot of mankind, the most that they can expect usually is the bit of glory which attaches to publication or to reading a paper; or rarely a cheap medal or prize is the reward.

It is astonishing that a small group of individual workers continue to bear the torch of truth-seeking, in spite of the denial to them of even these trifling, meretricious rewards for their efforts and sacrifices. What is even more amazing, is that it is generally these workers who lead the way of advance of medical science in the face of antagonistic "authority." They are compelled to struggle to give their life and health-saving discoveries to mankind.

A way must be found to encourage these valiant men that vested interests, politics, and commercialism will not be able to thwart. Otherwise, there will be forced on the pioneers of humanity a cynicism that will lead them to refuse mankind the gift of their discoveries and to command payment by making private secret remedies of them. This was the practice in the dark Middle Ages; and there is evidence at hand that again it is in vogue among medical merchants.

RESEARCH REFORMS

Everyone has a vital interest in the elimination of the research rackets; for upon honest and effective research rests the hope of prolongation of human life and of avoidance of disease*

The first step in the destruction of the research rackets would be the elimination of research regimentation and of monopolies of research funds and facilities. This would imply, among other things, the elimination of fraudulent associations which collect funds for the ostensible purpose of aiding research and then utilize them for payment of salaries and administrative charges; for they exhaust public generosity that supports research. Likewise, foundations which serve primarily as commercial voting trusts should be converted to public agencies.

Research and discoveries that serve public interest should be stimulated by a system of public prizes and emoluments that would pension the discoverer for the purpose of devoting himself to further researches. Such a plan might be made self-financing by a provision for patenting discoveries.

Provision should be made for demonstration and evaluation, compulsory on demand of the discoverer, of medical discoveries in municipal hospitals, after the methods first have been proved harmless in animals.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PUBLICATION ESSENTIAL

For the purpose of facilitating and stimulating the rapid dissemination of proved and valuable discoveries, accurate releases should be made for publication in the press. Freedom of thought, speech and publication in science and in medicine must be reestablished in the interest of public welfare. The words of Watson Davis, the director of Science Service, at the censorship dinner tendered by the A.M.A. to the science writers in 1937, cannot be repeated too often or stressed too greatly:

"Freedom of speech and freedom of press within the medical profession and its allied fields are just as important as the freedom of the public press. It is of public concern if dominant views within any scientific group tend to suppress minority or unconventional opinions."

Unfortunately these noble sentiments were lip homage and do not guide the policies of Science Service. The service is now completely censored by the A.M.A. rackets.