DICTATORIAL DOCTORS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 378, 15 July 1911, Page 3

DICTATORIAL DOCTORS.

SHOULD SANDOW ADVERTISE?

Mr Eugen Sandow, who began his public life as a "champion strong man" in the limelight of the vaudeville hall, is now at the head of a school of physical culture which is admittedly the most remarkable the world has seen. His work has become largely medical in nature, and his "patients" include the King of Britain and distinguished people of almost evt-ry nationality. His suites of rooms in London are famous for thnir magnificence, and his fees tax even the purses of the rich. He numbers hundreds of medical men among those who take his treatment, and his institute is the well of healing for the Stock Exchange wreck the dissolute youth. Mr Sandow employs three qualified medical men to test the fitness of his patients for physical culture treatment, and a few weeks ago the British Medical Association took exception to the position of these gentlemen. They were arraigned before the Council of the Association on a charge that they had "associated themselves in their professional capacity with an institution termed the Sandow Curative Institute, which systematically advertises for the purpose of procuring patients who are to receive, either by correspondence or by attendance at the said institute, treatment for disease under the personal direction of Eugen Sandow, who is not a registered medical practitioner, and that they have approved of and acquiesced in such advertising, and that in relation thereto they have been guilty of infamous conduct in a professional respect." The three doctors asserted that quackery and charlatanism were entirely unknown in the institute, which was doing extremely valuable work, and they denied any responsibility for the advertising. When the mail which arrived last week left London the "trial" had not been completed. The action of the Association aroused an extraordinary amount of interest, on account of Mr Sandow'a popularity and the grounds of the charge against the medical men. It was made quite clear that the real objection of the Association was to the advertising. It is said that Mr Sandow spends more money in advertising than any business firm in the United Kingdom does, and the continued success which enables him to do this affords strong testimony to the value of his physical culture treatment.