The Journal of the American Dental Association 58 East Washington St., Chicago, Illinois. O t t o U. K i n g , Business Manager, C. N . J o h n s o n , Editor. Published by the American Dental Association. All expressions of opinions and all statements of supposed facts are published on the author ity of the writer over whose signature they appear, and are not to be regarded as expressing the views of the American Dental Association, unless such statements or opinions have been adopted by the Association. Communications intended for publication in the scientific or literary pages o f T h e J o u r n a l should be addressed to the Editor. All advertising or business matters should be sent to the Business Manager. Subscription is included in the annual membership dues. To nonmembers living in the United States or it possessions, the price is $2.50 a year in advance; Canada, $3.00; Australia. $4.00; other countries, $3.25. All foreign subscriptions are to be paid in United States money. Entered as second-class matter, March 22, 1915, at the post office at Huntington, Indiana, under the Act of August 24. 1912. Published Monthly.
Editorial A CHANGE OF POLICY There has been an apparent change in the last few years in the attitude of the daily press when reporting dental meetings in different parts of the country. In times past, no reporter seemed to think an account of such a meeting was complete without the introduction of a lot of caricature and buffoonery. In fact, the chief part of the report consisted of this sort of treatment. Such headings as “The Tooth Carpenters Are in Session,” “The Knights of the Forceps Are with Us,” “The Tooth Tinkers Are in Town,” and other similar euphonious and nonintellectual references were common in former days when announcing the meeting of a dental society. A newspaper account was never complete without belittling references to our calling, and a con stant interjection of the idea that our chief function was to pull teeth. The ubiquitous and effervescent cub reporter exhausted his vocabulary, gained largely at that time by his association with ward heelers and plug-uglies of the back alleys, in his attempt 646
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to make his report of our meetings “readable” for the public. The whole effect was to minimize any possible dignity that might legitimately attach itself to the practice of dentistry, and to hold aloft and emphasize every ridiculous aspect that could be dis torted into applying to our profession. The sane and conserva tive men in dentistry, the very leaders of dental thought, almost grew to dread the newspaper reports of our meetings; and usually when they appeared, they were made to hang their heads and to indulge in a private opinion as to the worthiness of the press. But all of this is changed. The press of today may quite gen erally be relied on to give an acceptable and praiseworthy account of a dental meeting, and if a little raillery is occasionally indulged in, it is not a serious matter and seldom has any venom back of it. It is usually not meant to belittle the profession, and, for that matter, we must not expect to escape a reasonable amount of badinage. All callings receive it, and often it is good for them. We must not assume a “holier than thou” attitude in this matter any more than in others. The press is to be highly commended for the character of the reports of the dental gatherings of the day. They are calcu lated, for the most part, to give an accurate and intelligent inter pretation of the advances in dentistry that have a logical interest for the public, and be it said that the people are thereby receiving information which they would not otherwise obtain. The press is a great educational agency, and when it devotes its energies, as it is doing in this instance, to the furtherance of the welfare of the people through the dissemination of reliable information on matters affecting health and happiness, it is worthy of the utmost commendation. The dental profession takes the greatest pleasure in doffing its hat to the press of the country, and con gratulates it on the manifest change in policy, which represents a real service to the community along constructive lines, replacing a mere catering to the more unworthy interest of a sensation-loving class of readers. We predict that the influence of the daily press will increase in direct ratio to its adherence to its present pol icy, of publishing facts connected with health matters as brought
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out in our professional meetings, and its avoidance of distorted and sensational reports which have for their object an appeal only to the baser instincts of a certain class of the community. After all, decency is respected even though the indecent may at times and in some quarters be blinked at. Let the press stand by its present avowed principles of accurate and dignified accounts of profes sional meetings, and it will command without measure the re spect of all thinking men in the profession— yes, and all thinking men outside the profession. THE ETHICS OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM Many otherwise intelligent men have a very vague idea of the ethics involved in the publication of papers in professional journals. To begin with, there seems to be a misconception as to the ownership of papers that are read before dental societies. The moment an essayist reads a paper before any association, that paper becomes the property of the association. He has no right to present it before any other society without first announcing that it has been read elsewhere, and that it belongs to the asso ciation first receiving it. If this association has an official organ which publishes its proceedings, that organ has prior right to the paper. No other journal should publish this paper before it appears in the official organ, and then full credit should be given to the official journal. The practice of some essayists of reading the same paper before several societies is all wrong unless they specify the facts to each society before which it is read after the original presenta tion. It is conceivable that a paper might be so important and so timely that it could justifiably be presented in different sec tions of the country, but this should be done only under the conditions just indicated. Some of our dental journals have a rule prohibiting the use of material that has already appeared in print, while other copy extensively from other publications. It goes without saying that no journal should copy an article from another without giving