Dr. Morris Fishbein lecturing on the wide ranging medical myths that ran amok in America in the first half of the twentieth century.
Morris Fishbein (July 22, 1889 – September 27, 1976) was an American physician and editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) from 1924 to 1950.
Fishbein is vilified in the chiropractic community due to his principal role in founding and propagating the campaign to suppress and end chiropractic as a profession due to its basis in pseudoscientific practices.
He was also notable due to his affinity for exposing quacks, notably the goat-gland surgeon John R. Brinkley, and campaigning for regulation of medical devices. His book Fads and Quackery in Healing debunks homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, Christian Science, radionics and other dubious medical practices.
In 1938, Fishbein authored a two-part article “Modern Medical Charlatans” in the journal Hygeia which criticized the quackery of Brinkley. Brinkley sued Fishbein for libel but lost the case. The jury found that Brinkley “should be considered a charlatan and a quack in the ordinary, well-understood meaning of those words.” Fishbein responded that “the decision is a great victory for honest scientific medicine, for the standards of education and conduct established by the American Medical Association.”
Fishbein was critical of the activities of Mary Baker Eddy. He considered her a fraud and plagiarist.
This lecture, delivered at Indiana University on March 3, 1942 pulled no punches and offered stunning rebukes on the vast number of quacks, charlatans and myth propagators that were prevalent throughout America at the time and it was interesting to realize just how much in competition Modern Science was with the fringe society that grabbed the headlines and airwaves at the time.
Bears a striking resemblance to the goings-on of late. Further evidence that history never dies, it just comes back as something else.
Note: this recording is in pretty bad shape in spots – with poorly stored discs suffering from deep gouges in the grooves causing skips in several places. But it doesn’t detract from the content of this lecture – it’s just annoying – but I don’t think it will cause that huge a problem.
