Advertising medicines sixty years ago.

It is probably true that people receive the advertising they deserve. Even though we often prefer to deny it, advertisements in medical journals must influence and reflect our habits in some way or other, for otherwise the advertisers would not spend such large sums of money on their preparation and publication. Even partial glimpses of excavated advertisements from the days ofthe ancient Roman and Greek empires can tell us almost as much about the life of those times as do the surviving more formal written records. For example, 'In Pompeii and similar places, advertising by means of signs and inscriptions was quite common... This advertisement was discovered painted on a Pompeii wall: "There will be a dedication or formal opening of certain baths. Those attending are promised slaughter of wild beasts, athletic games, perfumed sprinkling, and awnings to keep off the sun"' (Sutphen, 1968). Was the 'perfumed sprinkling' devised and provided by predecessors of the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry of today? The advertisements of some of our predecessors were the subject ofjust as much criticism as are some of our own today. Daniel Defoe was scathing in his strictures on some London physicians at the time of the Plague in 1665. He wrote 'It is incredible and scarce to be imagined how the posts ofhouses and corners of streets were plastered over with the Doctors' Bills and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering with Physick, and inviting the People to come to them for Remedies; which was generally set off with such flourishes as these, viz., Infallible preventative Pills against the Plague, Never-Failing Preservatives against the Infection, Sovereign Cordials against the Corruption of the Air, Exact Regulations for the Conduct of the Body in case of an Infection' (Dukes, 1963). What then, do the advertisements in the early issues of the Postgraduate Medical Journal show of our colleagues 60 years ago? For some reason, the first year's issues of the Journal carried few or no commercial advertisements. However, for several years the Journal had a predecessor, the Bulletin of the Fellowship ofMedicine and Post-Graduate Medical Association, published from offices in No. 1 Wimpole Street, London W1 (by kind permission of the Royal Society of Medicine), which cost sixpence an issue and was 'registered at the General Post Office as a Newspaper'. The Bulletins of the early twenties carried advertisements of several different kinds. For example, the University Examination Postal Institution of Red Lion Square was already providing help to aspirants for higher degrees, and was able to claim, among others, 240 M.D.s (Lond.) between 1901-1920, including six Gold Medallists between 1913-1919. On another page, professional men requiring accommodation in London were invited to join the Connaught Club, under new management at Marble Arch, where prices were 'inclusive of valeting and the use of well-distributed bathrooms'.