CURE FOR UNHAPPINESS

Evening Star, Issue 22070, 2 July 1935, Page 11

CURE FOR UNHAPPINESS

mini training urged The training of doctors to make people happy in mind as well as m body was urged l in ft lecture, ‘ The Temperamental Factor in Industry,’ delivered recently by Professor M. Greenwood at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The real criticism of modern industrial life, said Professor Greenwood, is not that people are unhealthy in body, but that they are unhappy in mind. A Certain level of physical comfort has become general, But people are asking for something more—for happiness. Professor Greenwood asked: “Can utilisation of the truths about temperament which the old physicians discovered bs brought within the compass Of ordinary men and women f” The professor pointed out that Galen’s whole theory of medicine which Was founded on the doctrine of temperaments l,(t)0 years ago, was probably less absurd than the modern attempt to classify huniau beings according to the strength or weakness of their ductless glands —adrenals, thyroid, thymus, of pituitary. “As the science of psychology develops,” the professor stated; “ increasing attention is being paid to the emotional and temperamental factors. It is realised more and more how easily emotional disturbances may result in bodily ills that Can be cured Only by dealing with their psychological causes. ' “ This is usually regarded as an essentially modern development, but Galen fully realised the importance of emotional states in causing physical illness, yet in spite of the import, ance of psychological factors in th* modern industrial system, the ordinary general practitioner still receive* no definite psychological training.” The majority of people to-day, said Professor Greenwood, _ ate fighting less against conditions Which lead to bodily ills, but more against conditions Which lead to mental ills, and against an immense amount of psychological maladjustment. And , doctors should bo trained to combat it.