DOCTORS AND PUBLICITY.

Wairarapa Age, 6 January 1926, Page 4

DOCTORS AND PUBLICITY.

Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, as a crusader in the interests of public health, has been denouncing the strict rule of the British Medical Association against doctors utilising the public press for expressions of opinion on professional topics under their own name. As thq New jZealand medical organisation is a branch of the 8.M.A., the same conditions apply in the Dominion. A medical man cannot allow himself to be interviewed on any health topic without official consent. On the face of things, the rule is stupidly drastic, but medical men, for the sake of the community, preserve a steady attitude of conservatism towards all allegedly new discoveries, and they frown on colleagues who would like to develop their flaix for advertising. Two interests are involved, y On the one hand, the charlatan with! degrees—ari<l there are unscrupulous professional

men—must not be given any chance to create his own special cult among the public, many of whom are too credulous in regard to promises affecting their condition of health. Then there is the consideration that the public expects guidance from its medical men on the all-important subject of preserving good health, and it is to them that they look for a lead on large national matters such as overcrowding, housing, open spaces, drainage,! water supply, and other matters the neglect of which prejudices the 1 whole community. The records of the war showed that as a nation, our physical fitness is not bs’ any means A.l throughout the whole population, and "we need constant and authoritative reimndftrs that this Is the factj A liftle relaxing ef the rigid professional* etiquette to permit of doctors becoming mor® prominent in public movements of a general character would be welcomed by a community only too glad of good advice, though possibly not always ready to follow it.