MEDICAL ETIQUETTE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 118, 11 July 1911, Page 7

MEDICAL ETIQUETTE.

The latest action taken by the General Medical Council at Home against members of the profession for alleged transgression of the rules of piofessional conduct, has created an unusual amount of interest. Three medical men were charged with being associated with an institution that advertised that it undertook to cure ailments —the Instiute conducted by Mr Kugen Sandow. Mr Sandow, from being a professional strong man, has become the head of the greatest physical culture establishment in the world. Ho numbers among his thousands of patrons, the King, and many members of the upper classes, and he was recently publicly appointed physical cnlturist to his Majesty. It is said that the Institution spends more money in advertising than any other concern in England. The Institute, however, is more than a temple of physical culture; it claims to cure certain ailments by strengthening the body. A well-known rule of medical etiquette forbids advertising, and the Council took these proceedings because these three doctors were associated with a concern that advertised curative treatment. It appears that the duties of these doctors was to examine people who came for treatment, as to their fitness to undergo it, but that the responsibility of giving the treatment rested with Mr Sandow. One of the doctors stated, in his evidence before the Council, that there was nothing in the Institute to which a medical man could take exception, from a professional or an ethical point of view. A large number of medical men attended the Institute, and recommended patients to go there. He had had nothing to do with the advertising, and he submitted that if they objected to his association with the Inetitue they might as well object to a doctor having shares in the Army and Navy Stores because patent medicines wore sold there. The solicitor for the three doctors put in a largo number of advertisements of hospitals, sanatoria, and other institutions, at which medical service was given. The decision, which had not been given when the mail loft, may, therefore, be far-reach-ing in its effects. The case, of course, is an excellent free advertisement for Mr Sandow.