your business, and you will have no occasion to get into the toils of a collection agency. These things are commonplace, aren't they? They read like a, b, c. But the thing is to do them. If all doctors would do them, there would be no occasion for the continuance of this department, except the investment feature. And how about that? A Tennessee brother renews for 1913 and says: "I am taking your advice on investments strictly, and have not lost a penny yet." And he adds, "I thank you very much, indeed." New readers will ask what my advice is. It is simply this: First, pay all debts. You have no right to invest for profit while you have a debt, unless it is one upon which you are regularly paying interest-then it is sometimes advantageous to pay low interest while carrying an investment which yields a higher interest. But I mean particularly small debts. In some communities doctors are not considered good pay. They are too neglectful. And some business houses that deal with people all over the country will not send goods on credit to doctors. They say it is too risky. They say that on 1,000 accounts with doctors there will be a heavy percentage of loss. I have been trying for years to remove from the medical profession this unsavory reputation. It has vastly improved in the last ten years, and in the last five years; it should be brought up to "normal" without further delay. Do you owe the grocer? the druggist? the baker? the milk man? Do you owe for instruments? for books? for medical journals? Do you own your home? Is the education of your children being properly lookt after? Has your wife the necessary money to look after the numerous household needs, and personal needs of herself and the children, or does she have to beg humbly and repeatedly for every dollar she gets? Is she enabled to assume and maintain the position in the society of your community that "the doctor's wife" should? or is she kept down, and not given opportunities for those useful activities of which she is capable? Here "endeth the first lesson" on doctors' investments. Only when everything in this paragraf is fulfilled are you ready to take up the next phase of the investment question for doctors, which is as follows: Second-this one is very easy, but it is the rock on which many doctors have been wreckt. It is easy because it is negativ. It is simply don't. Don't pursue any will-o'-the-wisp. Flaring advertisements, flamboyant circulars, enticing letters--beware of them all. Do you remember those enticing letters sent out by Julian Hawthorne a few years ago? They were classical-the best of their class. He and his fellows were on trial in New York City a short time ago on account of these letters and the money that they pulled out of the pockets of the gullible. I haven't watcht the papers to see the result of the trial. Suffice it to say that if any doctors sent money to him he will never get it back. This instance will serve as a text for this paragraf. Pay no attention to such entreaties by mail, and what is just as important, don't be taken in by slick agents that are traveling around offering opportunities for large profits. If you should be imprest by any of these things, promise yourself, or your wife, or promise me, that you will not close any such deal nor pay out a single dollar on any such deal until you consult your banker and get his approval. Do this and you will be pretty safe. If you can't leave your office to go with the agent to the bank, make an engagement to do so later in the day or the next day; or call your banker up on the phone. Don't be led into hasty closing or the signing of any paper by the agent saying that he must take the next train and can't wait. Many sign in haste and regret at leisure. Sign nothing except after the greatest deliberation. And when you die, don't let it be said in the papers that your estate consisted of stocks in gold mines, oil wells, tropical plantations, etc., worth many thousands of dollars on their face, but if put up at auction would bring about 15 cents. Third. After living up to the above faithfully, the atmosphere is pretty clear. After you have accumulated some savings and kept the money in bank awhile to really be certain that you have got it and can keep it, you are ready to consider some safe and sound investment. Now go to your banker and talk to him and have confidence in him just like a patient talks to you and has confidence in you. He will know about any good local investment. Ask him about the stock of his own bank. Bank stock is usually a safe and profitable investment. He will talk to you about railroad stock and bonds, municipal and state bonds, etc., and possibly real estate. City lots or farm land are usually considered "solid" investments; but both judgment and "luck" have much to do in determining the success of such investments. Agricultural lands have increast in value very greatly in the last ten years. Will they hold their present value? That is a question. Will they continue to rise in value? Doubtful, except in specially favored localities. And don't forget shares in a good building and loan association, preferably a local one. The New Burlingame Telegrafing Typewriter Co. Dr. George P. Hamner, of Lynchburg, Va., asks about the above, and also about the Toledo Automobile Devices Co. I wrote to the Readers' Service of World's Work for whatever information they could give, and this is their reply: Answering your letter of December 6th, we beg to say that we have no information whatsoever about the Toledo Automobile Devices Company; nor can we undertake to prophesy as to the future of the New Burlingame Telegrafing Typewriter Company. This proposition, in our opinion, never did have any investment merit, and we do not think it ever will have. Our time nowadays is so far taken up with propositions about whose character there can be no doubt that we cannot find opportunity to keep in touch with the scores of propositions about whose character there are serious doubts. We clipt the following from the Philadelphia North American: $10,000,000 COMPANY ACCUSED OF FRAUD. NEW YORK, Dec. 11. The American Telegraf and Typewriter Company, of Brooklyn, a corporation capitalized at $10,000,000 has been indicted by the federal grand jury on a charge of using the mails to defraud. OFFICE OF P. W. Pearsall, M. D. Mr. TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TO DATE (Items of which can be had at the office.) An early settlement of this bill is requested. Office Over Stover's Drug Store. Phone, Residence or Office, No. 33. Received Payment. The federal authorities have been unable to find George A. Cardwell, president of the concern, for whom an order of arrest has been issued. Attorneys for Alfred Benesch and Edward J. Beach, brokers, have promised to have them appear to-morrow before United States Commissioner Shields. It is alleged that Benesch and Beach disposed of $200,000 stock in the company. Dr. W. C. Roberts, of Owatonna, Minn., asks for information concerning the National Mercantile Rating and Credit Agency of Milwaukee, Wis., and Phoenix, Ariz. He says: "They are supposed to collect information regarding physicians for the benefit of life insurance companies. They have certain men in all the larger cities who report to them." Who can tell us about this concern? A Georgia brother sends us a copy of the agreement blank that is used by the Mercantile Reporting Company, of Newark, N. J. The client is to give 40% of the first $50 collected, and 10% thereafter, 50% on claims required to go to court, and-here is a new wrinkle: an additional 10% for "recording, tabulating and office filing." Claims withdrawn in process of settlement are subject to the above commissions. Doctors very seldom get anything out of accounts given to agencies for collection. The agencies get something, but there is rarely anything left for the doctor. The doctor furnishes the accounts and has to go to much trouble, all for the agency's benefit, for practically all, usually entirely all, the returns are eaten up by the numerous fees, commissions, etc. Then why do doctors persist in giving their accounts to agencies? Follow the advice given in these Talks and you will have no occasion to patronize collection agencies. A Kansas brother sends in a bunch of the literature of the Enteronol Company, of Oswego, N. Y., which has been exposed so often in these columns, and says: "Tail don't die when the sun goes down." The Spanish Prisoner Fraud. You have doubtless read of this aged fraud. It has been workt for years, and has received the attention of the State Department in Washington, but it can't be stopt except by thoro exposure. I have long known of these letters, which are sent from Madrid, but I never saw one until Dr. E. G. Charbonneau, of Newark, N. J., sent me one. He says that his brother received it from Madrid, and that "it is a new one on me [him]." I assure all that it is not new; and it is strange that the same old fraud is workt in identically the same old way for so many years. I suppose this indicates that it pays-there are many gullible people in the world. printers will reproduce the letter the best they can, preserving the defectiv English and all. Dear Sir The Although I know you only from good references of your honesty my sad situation compels me to reveal you an important affair in which you can procure a modest fortune saving at the same time that of my darling daughter. Before being imprisoned here I was established as a Banker in Russia, as you will see by the enclosed article about me, of many English newspapers which have published my arrest in London. I beseech you to help me to obtain a sum of $280,000 I have in America, and to come here to raise the seizure of my baggage paying to the Registrar of the Court the expenses of my trial and recover my portmanteau containing a secret pocket where I have hidden the document indispensable to recover the said sum. As a reward I will give up to you the third part viz $160,000. I cannot receive your answer in the prison but you must send a cablegram to a person of my confidence who will deliver it to me. Awaiting your cable to instruct you in all my secret I am Sir Yours truly IVANOVITCH. First of all answer by cable not by letter as follows: Enrique Alvarez Lista Telegrafos. Perfect: Charbonneau. ally, by a noted Banker who absconded, leaving a deficit of over five millions of rubles. The Russian Police sought for him for a long time in vain, for it seems he had not left the least trace of his flight, and the continued search over Europe and America proved unavailing. Yesterday, however, a Spanish inspector, accompanied by two officers from Scotland Yard, and acting under instructions of the Spanish Ambassador, who had previously interviewed the Home Secretary, arrested him on his way from the hotel where he was staying to the steamship office. It seems that it was his evident intention to take passage for New York. From information received by the Ambassador, he had been in hiding in Spain, where he lived with a woman and with his daughter. A few days before arriving in London he had quarreled with another Russian, who was mortally wounded by a revolver shot during the scuffle, and who only lived long enuf to denounce his assailant. as In an interview with the Russian Ambassador, it seems that the name he had been using in Spain, and which he gave on being arrested, was not his real one, Manasseina being simply an alibi, but after comparing the prisoner with photografs in his possession, the Russian Ambassador recognized him Alexis Ivanovitch, the criminal banker who eloped with five millions of rubles. He is a native of St. Petersburg, a widower, 48 years old, with an only daughter that he left in Spain on escaping from that country. two On being arrested, of Manasseina's, Alexis Ivanovitch, portmanteaus were seized, but altho strictly searched nothing but personal effects were found in them, in spite of which, the Russian Ambassador declares that prisoner ought to have several million rubles somewhere. or The Russian and Spanish Ambassadors conferred yesterday evening as to whether the prisoner should be conveyed to Spain or to Russia, and after an interview with the Home Secretary, and in accordance with the extradition treaty of England, Russia and Spain, it was agreed that the prisoner should be conveyed to Spain, to stand his trial for manslaugh ter, and that only after his trial can the Russian government ask Spain, thru diplomatic channels, for his extradition. This newspaper clipping is an important part of the scheme, as it helps greatly to inspire confidence in the letter. Notice that there is no date on the clipping, nor any statement any place on the clipping nor in the letter as to what paper the clipping is from, nor the date. A newspaper clipping can be faked as well as anything else. The Kansas "Blue Sky" Law. One thing you can do this winter that will benefit your state and your community and consequently yourself. Several months ago I told you about the Kansas "blue sky" law. It is a law requiring all agents selling stocks and bonds in the state to procure a license from the state banking department. They must submit to that department detailed information concerning the schemes they are promoting, and only such securities as secure the And here is the newspaper clipping indorsement of the banking commissioner which was inclosed: ARREST OF A ST. PETERSBURG BANKER. CHARGED WITH FRAUD IN RUSSIA AND MANSLAUghter IN SPAIN. Interview of the Two Ambassadors. Some months ago, as our readers may remember we referred in these columns to the great scandal caused in St. Petersburg and in Russia gener are permitted to be sold in the state. It is estimated that this law has saved several millions per year to the people of Kansas since it has been in operation. It is called the "blue sky" law because it prevents the sale of securities which have no better backing than the blue sky-thin air, in other words. Many state legislatures will this winter take the Kansas law as a model and pass a similar law. You can serve your state by urging your representativ in the legislature to "get busy" along this line, and see that this law is enacted. He (or you) can easily get a copy of the Kansas law by writing to the Governor or Secretary of State of Kansas, or consulting the last Kansas legislature reports in some lawyer's office. Now is the time to do this. Show this part of this Talk to your local editor, the lawyers of your town, and if possible to your legislator, and make sure that your state shall be one of the many others that will come out in the spring with this law on the statute books. January. Christmas and the appealing holidays (holy days) are over. We will have to wait a whole year for their happy return again. We are starting a new year. Let us look back into the retrospectiv of the old year, and then turn to the prospectiv new year. We know what the old year has been; let us resolve what the new year shall be. Can we, from the experiences of the old year, carry lessons from it into the new year? What the old year has been is fixt-it cannot be changed. Not so with the new year. It will be what we make it. THE MEDICAL MONTH. The Nobel prize for medicin this year has been awarded to Dr. Alexis Carrel, of the Rockefeller Institute, New York. The award, it is announced, is made in recognition of his achievements in the suture of blood vessels and the transplantation of organs. The Nobel prize is valued at $39,000. About 85,000,000 Red Cross Christmas stamps were distributed, early this December, in every State in the Union, in accordance with the plan previously instituted to raise funds for treatment of tuberculosis sufferers. The late Theophilus J. Zurbrugg, of Riverside, N. J., opposite Philadelphia, bequeathed $250,000 to found a hospital at Riverside. The German Hospital of Philadelphia receives $5,000, as does, also, the Burlington county, N. J., hospital. Like an echo from the last century is a reactionary editorial in a recent number of the N. E. M. A. Quarterly imploring eclectics and homeopaths not to join regular medical societies, especially that "octopus, the A. M. A. Too late, brother; scientific medicin ignores "schools" of practise, and that is why a united medical profession can no longer be prevented. The fine, new Samaritan Hospital at Ashland, Ohio, the gift of a public-spirited citizen, J. L. Clark, was opened May 28th last. A recent printed account of the North American League for the Study and Suppression of Tuberculosis (Phthisis), giving facts of record, has pictures of the Convalescents' Retreat_at Glenn Mills, Delaware county, Pa., where Dr. W. H. Hutt, of Philadelphia, introduced the first fresh-air treatment for the tuberculous in America, 1884. The picture is taken from a Pennsylvania official publication of 1885 and proves that Dr. Hutt preceded Dr. Trudeau and others with this method in the United States. The University of Pennsylvania's $17,000 hospital in Canton, China, is to have an $85,000 addition for which funds are askt in this country. Why not first supply our own poor in country districts from cities? Protection against lead poisoning and occupational diseases were discust at the December 27th and 28th meetings, in Boston, Mass., of the American Association for Labor Legislation. The Rush Society has been organized in Philadelphia to agitate for advances in medicin, the biologic sciences and public hygiene. Each winter distinguisht speakers will lecture on these themes, as in the Harvey Society of New York. The American Society of Anatomists is to hold its annual meeting in the medical department of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, December 31st to January 2d. Many other scientific bodies are to meet there at the same time. The starting of a "health league," to promote rational living, is the aim of the aggressiv campaign of the Postal Life Insurance Company. Write to 35 Nassau Street, New York, N. Y., for necessary literature. At the Congress on Mental Hygiene, in session during November at New York, an appeal for subscriptions was made to further the plans for a nation-wide educational campaign on mental hygiene, which resulted in the announcement that an unnamed philanthropist would give $50,000 toward an endowment fund for the purpose provided $200,000 could be raised from other sources. A large part of the hoped-for endowment would be applied to the establishment of research laboratories and hospitals in various parts of the United States where investigations in regard to the causes and cure of insanity can be carried on extensivly. One of the world's great chemists, Dr. John William Mallet, author and teacher in at least four of America's great medical schools, died November 7th at Charlottesville, Va., aged 80. The movement for compulsory uniform reports of industrial accidents and diseases made distinct progress during the year. Seven states passed new or strengthened old laws relating to the notification of accidents, and two states, Maryland and New Jersey, joined the former half-dozen requiring physicians to report occupational diseases. Regulations for the purpose of preventing industrial injuries by the use of safety devices on dangerous machinery and exhaust hoods over poisonous fumes are also numerous. All of the labor laws passed by Congress and by state legislatures during 1912 are described in an elaborate and authoritativ bulletin just issued from its headquarters in New York by the American Association for Labor Legislation. Robert Fletcher, M.D., M.R.C.S., England, 1844; principal assistant librarian in the library of the surgeon-general's office, Washington, D. C., since 1886, died in Washington, November 8th. Dr. Fletcher was born in Bristol, England, March 3, 1823. Suggestiv therapeutics for successful "habit" cures by two Salt Lake City clergymen has a full column space in the October 14th Salt Lake Tribune. Why do not that city's practicians follow this method also? Louisville, Ky., is deservedly proud of its million-dollar general hospital, now open. It is a model institution on the pavilion-group plan and will serve for teaching purposes for the University Medical School of that city. Why should not doctors also have shorter hours? The action of Congress in establishing the cight-hour day for contract and subcontract work done for the government is likely to be far-reaching in its effects. Five states, also, have just passed laws limiting the working hours of men in private employments. Arizona has establisht the eight-hour day for mines and smelters; New Jersey the ten-hour day in bakeries; Massachusetts regulates the working hours of motormen and conductors, and New Mexico of railroad employees; while Mississippi has just passed a sweeping ten-hour law. The S. R. Smith Infirmary, Tompkinsville, Staten Island, N. Y., received $108,333 in a recent "campaign." The midwinter meeting of the Medical Section of the American Life Convention will be held at Hot Springs, Ark., February 26th to 28th, 1913. The $250,000 hospital and fund of the Missouri Pacific-Iron Mountain System has been turned over to the system's employees. John Schrank, the would-be assassin of Expresident Roosevelt, has been adjudged insane. He was committed to the Northern Hospital for the Insane, Oshkosh, Wis., November 25th. The Ohio Valley Medical Association held its annual meeting at Evansville, Ind., November 13th and 14th. New York has joined Massachusetts in prohibiting the industrial employment of women within four weeks after childbirth, and the prohibition of the employment of women in general for more than 54 hours a week. Recent experimental studies on young male subjects show the great value of free taking of water with meals, according to P. B. Hawk and others. This reverses current medical opinion on this subject. Trachoma has lately been found widely prevalent among the Indians of Minnesota and whites in rural parts of Kentucky. In both sections it has existed for many years. Out of 13 state legislatures this year in which child labor bills were introduced, ten passed laws on the subject. The tendency is toward shorter hours with higher minimum age restrictions, and the prohibition of night work. Louisiana, however, has readmitted her children to the stage. The recently formed Associated Out-Patient Clinics of the City of New York will work to remove hospital dispensary charity abuse. This promises to become a national movement. Systematic eradication of uncinariasis in Kentucky is now in charge of the State health board. Kentucky, Maryland and New Jersey have this year passed ten-hour laws for women. Last year's eight-hour laws in California and Washington have been upheld by the Supreme Courts. Criminals and prostitutes are largely "dope fiends" and the present nationwide movement against unrestricted sale of cocain and morphin will mean much for repression of crime in the United States. A notable achievement of 1912 in labor legislation is the minimum-wage law of Massachusetts, the first experiment of the kind in America. Thru publicity it is believed that public opinion will force employers in any industry to pay the minimum wage determined by the state wages board. The Tri-State Medical Society of Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana met in annual session at Shreveport, La., November 12th and 13th. Pennsylvania's seven-year-old official war against tuberculosis has given that state the lowest death rate from that disease. Having the largest mountain forest reserves, 55,000 acres, with three great camps and a widespread dispensary system for such sufferers, explains this enviable record. President Taft and Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, after months of consideration, decided upon the appointment of Dr. Carl Alsberg, a chemist in the Bureau of Drugs and Plants, as chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, of the Department of Agriculture, a position that has been vacant since the resignation last spring of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley. Surgeon-General Stokes, of the Navy, told the House Committee on Naval Affairs at Washington, December 7th, that there had not been a single case of typhoid fever in the whole American navy, with its 64,000 men, since the adoption, 11 months ago, of the antityphoid treat ment. William J. Nealon, a Philadelphia physician, who, after losing his sight, became a successful masseur, and is now on the staff of the Howard Hospital there, is the recipient of a $30,000 legacy from a grateful patient. Half of this sum he will apply to erect and equip an institution where the blind may learn practical massage. This altruistic doctor will thus introduce an age-old Japanese custom into America. The advertising doctor does "fall down" at times, tricky tho he be: The jury at Buffalo, N. Y., December 6th, in the case of Mrs. Mina Smith against Dr. W. Augustus Pratt, took only a few minutes to return a verdict for $18,000 damages in Justice Emery's part of the Supreme Court. Mrs Smith, who is 47 years old, went to New York in answer to an advertisement of an institute run by Dr. Pratt. According to her testimony he told her he could make her beautiful. She submitted to a series of operations and paid him $800. She now has a badly contorted face, deeply markt with purplish marks, and is apparently a physical wreck. No defense was offered. The Federal government now maintains in Washington state a national colony for lepers. |