THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

Evening Star, Issue 22805, 13 November 1937, Page 2

THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

ADVANTAGES OF MARRYING YOUNG f Monday, November 8. “ I'm terribly worried about Marcia,” said her mother, Mm Unall. “ She’s insisting on marrying young George Trail, though she’s only 20. Apart from the fact that the doesn't know her own mind yet, it's quite wrong that children of 20 should risk the physical strain of babies and all that.” “ How old is Trail?” I asked. “ He’s 25 and struggling along on £6 a week. How on earth they expect to live on that I don’t know. There’s no need to ask whether you’re against early mnsdages, I suppose, doctor.” “ I’m afraid I’m in favour of them,” I replied, “ both physicaly and psychologically. This late marrying business is a twentieth-century idea, forced on us by economics. Even as late as Queen Victoria’s day the ’teens were the correct age for marriage. It is Nature's mating time, after all.” “ Doesn’t it make a very crude business if it merely becomes a physical necessity?” retorted the mother with some spirit. “It is much more than that,” I replied, “ but it would surely be foolish to ignore the Prayer Book’s excellent summary of the situation.” “ Personally, I thought that section rather disgusting,” commented Mrs Unall “ Bub apart from that aspect,” I argued. “ T still think that it is much better to marry before disillusionment is risked and before experience jades the appetite.” “ After all.” I continued, “ the older you get, the higher the standard of living and life you demand. When you have fallen in and out of love three or four times you begin to wonder whether the next one will be the real thing or just another enisode in a serial.” “ Sneaking from experience,” pressed Mrs Unall. “ I’m not biting.” I replied. “ The crux of the story' is that delayed marriage to those who love is undesirable. And it's better to grow up with your children than to find it impossible to bend down to them.” “ But marriage is such a gamble when vou’re 20, isn’t it?” sighed Mrs On all ‘ “ Marriage is a gamble at any time.” I retorted. “ You’re telling me,” said Mrs Unall with unexpected fervour. Tuesday, November 9. “ I’ve got arthritis, I think,” announced Herbert Kanes. , “My friends tell me that my teeth must be infected, but, of course, I’ve worn dentures for years, so I’ve come along to gee if you could find some other reason and cure for it.” That was on Friday of last week. We removed the dentures, examined the mouth carefully, and sent Herbert along for an X-ray. When he called this evening 1 showed him his X-ray film, which betrayed the presence of a broken infected root well below the gum. It had probably been mouldering away for vears. • Dentists teH us that months that show no teeth may often oh X-ray -examination show septic roots, broken fragments of hone, cysts, and one or two other causes of infection.

Wednesday, November 10. “ I’ve been wondering whether it's worth going on with life,” said Leslie Arlins bitterly. He is 35 years of ago and fast going incurably deaf. “Modern inventions will a certain amount of hearing,” I shouted at him. “ Wouldn’t bo seen dead wearing an ear trumpet,” he replied shortly. “ That’s rubbish,” I said. ‘ You wear spectacles for your eyes, why can’t you wear a neat apparatus for your ears?” “ You look such a fool, he retorted. “ Anyhow, what’s left for you to do when you’re deaf?” “ Beethoven wrote symphonies, Edison invented the gramophone, and Sir Joshua Reynolds painted pictures,” I replied. “ I’m neither Beethoven, Edison, nor Reynolds,” said Arlins. “ That’s not verv sympathetic.” “ Frankly.” I replied, “ you’re much more in need of reassurance than sympathy. The first thing is to go and get ” the particular apparatus the specialist recommended. Then go to your office determined that you’re not going to let anything spoil your present or future. It needn’t. You’ll miss certain things in life, but you’ll gain in other ways. You’ll concentrate better, and at times you’ll be able to stand a little apart from the multitude and survey us all with insight and amusement.”

For half an hour I talked in this strain, realising that the treatment of the psychological side of deafness is at least as important as the physical. There is a tendency (with which one sympathises) for the deaf to become suspicions of people and uninterested in life and there is no need for this to happen. One of the most active and, most useful citizens in this country has been deaf for the last 20 years of her life.

Thursday, November 11. The two minutes’ silence came in the middle of an important operation at the hospital to-day. We naturally did not cease work, but the ordinary occasional chatter of the theatre was silent, nor was it resumed for nearly 10 minutes. Ido not know that I have ever felt it quite so poignantly before. The loud breathing of the patient far away in his world of suspended life thrashed the silence like a call from the tomb. The senior surgeon (whom I was assisting) , was the first to break the silence. . “ I suppose war has its uses,’-' lie said, grimly. “ Whatever facility 1 have in doing this particular operation, I owe to the war. I did it for the first time in France in 1916, and repeated it about five hundred times before uie Armistice.” “ Will surgery advance again if nn.olher war should come,” asked tue amesthetist. “ It is doubtful whether nuch surgery will be required,” said the surgeon. ” Why should an enemy waste time shooting bullets and shells at an army when it can throw mustard pas over hundreds of thousands of civilians. There is no cure and little preventive outside underground cellars for mustard gas. despite gas masks and all that. “ Tn modern war,” said the ® l,ses ' thetisb, reaching for another bottle of anaesthetic, 11 nations no longer pick armies as you pick Test Match Test Match teams and send them out to battle in the may-the-best-man-inn spirit. War to-day means attempted extermination of the multitude, with or without prewarnitm. The sooner the milium i :-a” il. I ! ”‘ ••’ ,r 1 •' liiusiasm nil! be fur it.”

“Agreed,” said the surgeon, “but what are we all to do about it?” Friday, November 12. The German measles the suburb has been suffering is still with us, and my name is mud with the Hopkins family on that account, it so happened that Alice came to me a week ago complaining of a sore -throat, a cold in the head, a slight rise of temperature, a few pinky-red spots on the body, and a suspicion of swollen glands in the back of the neck. These are the classic signs of the trouble, though they equally may introduce anything from a cold to scarlet fever or even diphtheria. Many skins become a little red with fever. In view of the epidemic I suggested measles and sent Alice home. She was completely recovered next morning. refused to accept the diagnosis, aiul returned to her office. On this occasion, the error, if error it was, was harmless enough. Sometimes in the still night watches when sleep evades me, however, I think with alarm of other errors not so harmless. Medicine is after all not yet an exact science. Recently a great physician retired from a world-famous hospital. The honorary staff made him a presentation. His sincerely modest address in reply began:— “ Gentlemen, when I look back on my 40 years, of mistakes . . ♦ * * * The one forgivable thing about its mistake is its recognition. Nr.iv.rs in t'ir-v - c liclili-us. iyl'.t.