Medicine: Gulled

Physicians are often gulled by sharpers. Many of them combine a spotless naivete in business matters with the conviction (bred by their familiarity with physical exigencies) that they are keen men of affairs. Over their stumblings in realms of finance the maternal Journal of the American Medical Association keeps zealous watch. Last week it published a warning to those medicos who might be persuaded, by the circulars of a group of flim-flams, to avail themselves of the “Special Subscription Privilege” of purchasing “Banker’s Shares” in the Ford Motor Co. of Canada, Ltd. The circulars stated the indisputable fact that $100 invested in Ford of Canada in 1904 is now $32,000; it set down the names of officers of this company, all correctly spelled. The fellows who devised this chicanery had gone so far as to buy a small block of Ford Co. of Canada stock at $490 a share; each share they divided into 100; each one-hundredth they called a “Banker’s Share.” These “shares” they offered to the physicians of the country at $10 a “share.” Thus the special subscription offer enabled gulled physicians to pay $1,000 for stock worth less than $500. Said the A. M. A. Journal: “Physicians will do well to throw these ‘Special Subscription Privilege’ blanks into their waste baskets.”