In the 1940's as a 15 year old I worked summers at B. B. & S. under the tutelage of my mentor, Mr. Henderson.

Several lessons were dedicated to the stupidity of medical doctors who refused to acknowledge the genius of Harry Hoxsey, the lay doctor, former coal miner and insurance salesman, who advertised "Dr. Hoxsey's Cure for Cancer."

Hoxsey started his clinic in 1920 with a "sure cure" for any kind of cancer based on a handed down story about a horse that developed an ulcer. The animal was pastured in a field containing certain herbs. In time, the horse cured itself.

Hoxsey recreated a mixture of those herbs and teaming up with a radio announcer advertised to the world he could cure any sort of cancer.

Although he did no actual testing and tests by medical labs showed that internal use could make a patient extremely ill and in some cases cause death, by 1950 he was treating 8,000 patients a year with a revenue of $1,800,000.

A Canadian study showed that many of his "cures" did not show cancer symptoms in the first place and that a high percentage of his patients died of cancer after treatment.

He sued the AMA for slander and won. The judge awarded him $2. ruling that because most of Hoxsey's advertising was based on the idea that the AMA was persecuting him because they knew he was right and they were wrong he had suffered no monetary loss.

The Hoxsey case became a cause celebre with the top right-wing agitators of the day. Apparently Mr. Henderson subscribed to a right wing news letter and felt Mr. Hoxsey's pain and possibly sent a dollar to help the multimillionaire, Hoxsey, in his fight.

Tonight I was doing some research on treatment of basal cell cancer on the ear by the Mohs method. I was surprised to find that part of the treatment was the removal of cancerous cells using a caustic substance derived from some of the herbs used in Hoxsey's magic cure.

Well, Mr. Henderson, a lot of big lies are based on small truths.