A Modern Ailment

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 178, 26 April 1938, Page 5

A Modern Ailment

The Sad Story Of “Mrs. Everyman” “Dominion” Special Service —By Airmail. London, April 1. A MODERN ailment —“suburban neurosis” —is described in the "Lancet” by Dr. Stephen Taylor, senior resident medical officer at the Royal Free Hospital, London. Dr. Taylor has formed the impression that' nowadays there are fewer "bottle of medicine”-loving patients, and their place has been taken by young women with “anxiety states.” He then proceeds to tell the story of “Mrs. Everyman.” She is 28 or 30 years old and is a frequent caller at the hospital. “She and her dress are clean, but there is a slovenly look about her,” he says. “She has given up the permanent wave she was so proud of when she was engaged. Her clothes, always respectable, and never as smart as those young hussies who work in the biscuit-factory, are. like her furniture, getting a little shabby. “She is pale but not anaemic. She, has left the child outside in the wait-ing-room. As she sits down, I notice that her hands are shaking. ' “She tells me that her symptoms are trembling all over, a nagging headache, stabbing pains over her heart, back pains, sleeplessness, and ‘l’m getting ever so thin.’ . . .

The superficial cause of Mrs. Everyman’s complaint, according to Dr. Taylorfi is boredom—lack of friends, not enough to do and not enough to think about; anxiety—money, the house, another baby; and a false set of values. And here is his treatment: “If it were possible to establish on each new housing estate a team of psycho-ana-lysts,” he says, “the suburban neurotics might learn to see 'themselves as they are, and carry on and even reconstruct their unsatisfactory lives without developing symptoms. “The treatment of the individual case is beset wtih difficulties. One must attempt to reawaken interest in life. A club of some kind, or a pub, is a great help, but all too often neither is available, or the pub is by unwritten law for men only. “Another baby, rather than a new wireless, if it can be afforded, may effect a permanent cure. If the house can be disposed of, a flat near a few friends may work wonders. "We have, I fear, let matters go too far in the jerry-building, ribbon-de-velopment line to institute an entirely satisfactory scheme of prophylaxis. We have allowed the slum which stunted the body to be replaced by a slum which stunts tbe mind.”