SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14108, 29 July 1911, Page 7

SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR.

QUACKERY AND JOURNALISM.

(By Sir Ratl__xke_t_r, X.C.8., F.R.S.)

(Special rights secured by "Tho Press.")

When a newspaper publishes as its own editorially-approved statement, the assertion that some pictures on view at a salesman gallery arc of such high merit as to indicate tho existence among us of a "new master," we can all go and see the pictures and form our own judgment as to the competence of the critic and the astuteness of the picture dealer. But when under the same kind of guarantee we find a prominently-placed communication from Paris, announcing the discovery of a "New Treatment for Tubercle" we have to examine the statement made, and judge as to its value from the internal evidence afforded by the announcement itself.

I have not yet been able to discover why otherwise serious journals persist in .publishing the most absurd and selfcondemned reports about medical and scientific matters forwarded to their editors by worthy gentlemen who are employed as "foreign oon-espondents" to send over from Paris, Vienna, or Berlin, political and social news and gossip, and are, as a rule, entirely ignorant of such matters, root and branch 1 A leading London journal has lately published several urgent communications from its "own correspondent" in Paris, asserting that a new and wonderful cure for tubercle ha. been discovered by a medical man in Buda-Pesth, and has been tried on many patients with success in Paris by two other medical men, who have communicated an account of this wonderful cure to two medical societies. The name of the Hungarian medical man is given, as also are diose of the doctors in Paris, who are stated to have excited, by their use of the new remedy, the profoundest interest throughout France, whilst audaciously claiming that their remedy shall be applied at once, and no more money spent on sanatoria. The names of the medical men given are quite unknown to fame, and the "societies" before which they are said to have ! mated their wonderful experiences are equally unknown and unimportant. It mu-t be remembered that there are many very distinguished physicians in Paris, but none of them appears to have had anything to do with this urgently-, proclaimed new Hungarian remedy. There is also the Academy of Medicine of Paris, the Academy of Sciences, and the Biological Society. These are not the societies to whioh the unknown medical practitioners have communicated their experiments. ■ It is to "societies" which are entirely unknown and obscure, the like of which exist by the dozen in every city, that this wonderful discovery has been described. What, one asks oneself, can have induced a Paris correspondent of a London daily paper to telegraph the proceedings of these obscure persons to hk> London employers? What can have induced the editor of that 6taid and respectable organ to print such a "story of a cock and bull" in its leading columns instead of consulting some medical man of average capacity and experience as to the value of such gossip? Do London journals publish political gossip of a similarly flimsy character? Are accounts of happy finds of "old masterSj** let alone netv ones, habituall-" published in the London Press "upon no better authority than that which has sufficed to give us the head-line, "The New Treatment for Tubercle"? It certainl- has not been feo in past days, and one may hope that it is not to be so in the future.

I Accounts of quack remedies and puffs of the pretensions of obscure practitioners of medicine have only rarely found place in respectable London news- ; papers, and we may still hope that the ! occasional appearance of such articles [is due to carelessness and want of exI pert assistance rather than to a de- • liberate adoption of American methods |of journalism. The utter worthlessness of the account of the remedy for tubercle which was lately published is. due to the ignorance of the Paris correspondent, nnd to the charlatanry- of tho persons from whom he obtained his information. That it should be possible for such utter nonsense to be printed, in good faith, by a leading Loudon paner is really distressing. We are tol_ by the "correspondent" that the medical discoverers of tliis cure make no secret of its composition; it is, the correspondent calmly tells us, "peptonised iodine," together with menthol and a radium salt. There is absolutely no such thing in existence as "peptonised iodine"; the term is nonsensical. An albuminous food (such as meat), by digestion with pepsin, is converted into "popton," and is said to bo "peptonised." You can no more peptonise iodine than you can peptonise a lump of rock crystal or a five-franc niece. Whoever is responsible for the term •'peptonised iodine" was writing of a subject of which he was helplessly ignorant. Again, any- | one who knows anything about medicine knows that radium as a drug for internal administration has not been investigated, and that to administer it in the excessively minute quantities which its-use as an ingredient of this euro ncces .lKites (on ace- trot of its > f'rioo) would be a piece of reckless charatanism -t*-isnod only tn'oivble tha'. owners of .he cure to make us© of the word "radium" as an attraotion to the ignorant and gullible. j

There is not much to be said or done against those who offer to the public bogus remedies for terrible diseases. But the case of respected leaders of public opinion, trusted authorities known for accurate and intelligent information, who del beratoly abandon tha careful methods for which they wero onoe distinguished and betray the confidence of their readers by gjving their impress and currency to c.np-trap which is the result of vulgar ignorance, if not of somethin<» worse, cannot bo passed by in silence. Corruptio optimi pessima. The descent of journalism from a high level to that of ignorant gossip and mendacious trade advertisement is an easy one. One may hope that _uch a misfortune will not be the fate of any of the old established London newspapers- But great care and competent supervision aro necessary if startling paragraphs and sensational announce--ments are to bo made and at the samo time an established reputation for accuracy and intelligence maintained

Amongst tho various forms of quackery—quackery which always flourishes in big cities —now to the fore in Paris i_ the treatment of young children suffering from intestinal poisoning by injection into the tissues of sea water. I fear it cannot bo long before some rash '« foreign corresponebnt " will rush into print with an account of this dangerous piece of quackery^—as a marvel of medical discovery. The fact is that for many years now the injection of a solution of common salt, spoken of as ' normal saline solution " into the blood and tissues has been regularly used by medical men in cases of absorption of -certain organic poisons from the intestine. The "new" discover jr consists i n using (instead of normal saline eo.'ution) gea water, which, owing to its holding common salt in solution, ha® practically thee° c effect, but is dangerous on account of it« possible contamination. I found, on a recent visit to Paris, that m y fjie_-__ of literary and historical

tastes, also fashionable ladies, and many devout Catholics, wero faicinated by the romantic advocacy by a uon-w-dicai enthusiast (one "Canton" or "Quiiitin") of this use of the water of tlie sea—the sea from which ail life ha-* sprung! the sea to the saltncss ot wliich we owe the saltness of our blood, having inherited it from our remote marine ancestors' "If the blood i_ poisoned and injured," say the enthusiasts, "what more natural or appropriate than to replenish it by additions to it of pure sea water taken from the depths?' Of course, such a proceeding is anything but natural, and the only question is whether it is reasonable. The usual device of photograpli_ ot patients" before and after " treatpiejit is mado use of and even the sceptical but ignorant philosophers are converted by this kind of demonstration. As a matter of fact, it is unsafe to use sea-water for such injection, without previous sterilisation of it by heat, even when tai;. n irom the sea at a deDth of 20ft or 30ft, on account of possible contamination by bacteria and casual dirt. And the enthusiasts insist on using the _ea-water unhoaterl, and, as they would say, "unspoilt." On the other hand, normal salute solution is sterilised, and is perfertly safe. The notion that the other constituents in sea-water over and above common salt havo a beneficial action is a pleasing supposition, but only a supposition. It could easily be shown by experiment whether the salts of lime in sea-water hare any special value or not. It cou'd also be ascortaired whether the gases dissolved in sea-water have any Bpecial action on the human body. Aiid again, it could bo ascertained by "experiment whether such a minute quantity of gold as that present in 6ea-water, namely, one grain to the ton, has or j has not any effect on the human body, I and yet further whether, if such an I effect were found, it was a beneficial or 1 injurious one. As things at present i stand, there is not the smallest reason to believe that sea-water is better for I the purpose of injection into the system than is the solution of common salt ordinarily used by medical practili ners. Credulous and fanciful people imagine that there is a virtue in sea-water from the depths of the ocean rather than in a simple solution of salt, because the one has romantic associations, and is troublesome to - procure, whilst the other is a very simple and easily prepared 1 thing.

A most remarkable piece of empty quackery to which some organs of the London Press lent their support a few years ago was that of a certain Dr. Schenk, of Vienna, who declared that by tho skilful uso of 6ugar in tho diet of tho mother he could cause the sex of human offspring to bo male or female at his pleasure. No serious physiologist or medical man in Vienna or anywhere else attached the slightest importance to Schenk's statements, as jho offered no proper evidence of the truth of his pretensions. But "our own correspondent" sent from Vienna to a London daily paper an account- of this nonsense as a great and revolutionary discovery, which was printed in largo type and prominent position. Un - happy parents not yet blessed with heirs eagerly sought the assistance of the charlatan, and a great deal of money was made by the sale of his book on the subject, as well as by the usual method of foes for consultation and advice. It is probable that tho professional newspaper man who sent this foolish report to his paper, and also the editor who printed it, wero acting in good faith, believing, in consequence of their comnleto ignorance and the self-esteem which made them unwilling to seek from experts for correct information, that they really had got hord of a wonderful discovery! It is perhaps a relic of mediroval tendencies which causes journalists more than most men to nourish and nropagate delusions about cures and medicines, occult influences, and sea-serpents. Yet it would probably pay the proprietors of, at any rate, one amongst our many daily papers, to deal with these matters as responsible and honest reforee6, and to place before their readers authoritative criticism of such recurrent ebullitions of foolishness if of sufficient importance to be mentioned at all. Tho policy of "giving tho public what they want does not exclude correct and well-informed handling of wondermongers' gossip. Tliat is, in fact, what the public does want.