Am.  Jour.  Pharm.) 
May,  1920.) 
Association' s  Latent  Power. 
341 
provides  his  pepper  and  salt,  his  books  and  papers ;  or  who  furnishes 
the  ready  means  of  transportation  and  exchange  whereby  his  myriad 
wants  are  supphed. 
"Neither  should  he  forget  that  the  more  he  assists  others  the  more 
they  can  assist  him. 
"Take  the  telephone  specialists  of  the  Bell  System:  the  more 
efficient  they  are,  the  more  effectively  the  farmer  and  every  other 
human  factor  of  civilization  can  provide  for  their  own  needs  and 
comforts. 
"Or  take  our  government,  entrusted  with  the  task  of  regulating, 
controlling  and  protecting  a  hundred  million  people.  It  is  to  the 
advantage  of  everyone  that  the  government  shall  be  so  efficient  in 
its  special  task  that  all  of  us  may  perform  our  duties  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions.  Interdependence  means  civilized  exis- 
tence." 
BVADING  The:  physician's  PREJUDICE- 
It  has  long  been  a  belief  of  the  ethical  medicinal  manufacturer 
that,  since  his  sales  leverage  is  on  the  physician,  any  advertising  of  a 
popular  nature  would  be  a  lethal  dose  to  his  business.  Like  a  good 
many  other  business  traditions,  it  has  been  accepted  as  an  axiom 
unnecessary  of  proof.  A  little  effort  to  think  all  around  the  subject 
would,  I  believe,  dethrone  it  from  this  position  just  as  many  other 
so-called  business  axioms  have  been  dethroned  by  some  hewer  of 
new  trails  who  has  made  an  undreamt  of  success  largely  because  he 
disregarded  the  rules  of  the  game  and  played  it  in  a  new  way. 
The  ban '  of  the  medical  profession  against  advertising  to  the 
public  is  based  on  the  very  laudable  principle  that  the  calling  of  the 
physician  is  too  noble  to  be  made  a  subject  of  commercial  exploita- 
tion. It  was  imposed  in  the  days  when  advertising  was  a  crude 
thing  of  "best  on  earth"  boasts  in  brazen  and  ugly  display  and  when 
a  business  man  had  no  other  vision  of  advertising  than  as  a  medium 
of  telHng  greater  numbers  than  his  salesmen  could  reach  that  he  had 
something  that  he  wanted  them  to  buy.  It  is  the  very  antipodes 
of  the  educational  advertising  of  the  sort  proposed  here,  advertising 
that  seeks  only  to  enlighten  and  whose  physical  nature  is  commend- 
able from  both  literary  and  artistic  standpoints.  The  prejudice 
of  the  physician  against  advertising  that  goes  to  the  people  should 
not  be  regarded  as  a  rock  that  absolutely  bars  the  passageway.  It 
may  be  a  rock  but  there  are  plenty  of  passages  around  it,  and  it  is 
