The Prescott daily news., 1915-10-01
MEDICAL ETHICS AND ADyER.
 TISING.

Shiii, why surgeon should be barred from advertising his capabilities. is Ia question that has "been discussed from one end of the country to an other" says the Texarkana Four Stat es Press. "and the only answer that ever has been obtained to it is that it is "a violation of the ethics of the profession"
 The Four States Press ruminations were inspired by the announcement from Little Rock of we'll known practitioner who had decided to pursue a modern policy and go after business even though a more than moderately large ethical practice already had come to him.
 Medical ethics" continues the Tex arkana publication, lis defined as the morals of individual action or practice but where in the definition there is commandment, thou shalt not adver tise,' Is something the average layman cannot see. The physician is looked upon as broad-minded, intellectual individual, and from this standpoint the is not one surely who would ob
 ject to the success of a worthy compe- titor being given to the world through out the medium of advertising or through the news columns of the lpress, yet the only visible reason for this iron-clad adherence to the ethics can be escribed to but one thing, and and that is professional jealousy.
 "lt has frequently happened here in !TeXarkana that some particularly ob- stinate, perhaps even malignant, case has been successfully combated, but the attending physician does not dare to breathe it-'violation of ethics
 There are ways, insofar as the news values are concerned, wherein the doctor can get around this strin- gent adherence to medical ethics, but even then the average practitionr dis likes to evade the real issue. The general public likes to know what the doctors are doing. Doctors will say, Well, but these so-called unusual cases are discussed in the medical journals True enough, but the lay man does not take the medical jour nal, there ~ole his source of informa- ton is through the press. Thus that formidable barrier-'ethics'- s'-prevents the layman from learning of what is going on in an unusual way in the realm of medical science.
 "A Little Rock physician, and one prominent among the lights of the medical fraternity in the State of Arkansas, and one time president of the State association, has recently thrown down the gauntlet to his fellow practitioners and announces that he proposes to let the world know what he is capable of doing.
 "Let us hope that more may follow in his steps and announce that they no longer intend to be subservient in the matter of publicity to such mas ter as Ethics of the Profession
 Perhaps the real truth of the mat ter is that "ethics" insofar as it re- llates to the business in hand of the physician and surgeon is old-fashioned and out-of- date, as anachronously out of place as sleighbells in Havana, wigs and gowns for justices of the Ipeace ard knee brooches for evening drss. In the paleozoic age of the Aes- culpians someone who perhaps was "broke" decreed that "advertising was not ethical" and the clan, tlock-llke, with a few exceptions, has followed without a murmur.
 The barriers are breaking down however, just as they broke down Tn other professions, and the physician of the future will be one who will not be ashamed to let the public know just what branch of medicine he is practlc- ing. Just why a man who has been at the best medical universities, who has done all classroom, laboratory and clinical work required, and has been graduated and accredited with skill, but who decides to advertise his mer- | it's, should not be as good physician or surgeon as one who has undergone the same training, but who has not advertised, is something the pubic will refuse to see-some day not dls- tantly in the future. And by adver- Using it is not meant necessarily cir cus bill-posting or other proclamatlons