THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 3

THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

HUSBANDS AND WIVES Monday, February 2t. An examination of Mrs Hellicoll, to whom I was called this morning, reyealed nothing definite. There were symptoms of poor appetite, general 1 irritability, and poor sleeping. “ You’re quite sound physically,” 1 told her. “ Isn’t there something else to account for it?” “ What do you mean?” she asked. Worry and constant anxiety about something,” I said. ' Mrs Hellicoll denied having any particular worries or anxieties. I persisted a little and at last came the story and tears. “ I don’t think John loves me any more.” she said. “He never tells me so. He never kisses me like he used —just a peck when he leaves for tile office and when he comes home: I know I’m getting off in looks and all that, but I didn’t think it would make that much difference to him. He must have another woman somewhere. It’s driving me distracted.” I know John Hellicoll very well and stuck up for his chastity. “ You know,” I said fo his wife. I’m afraid that all men get like that some time or other, and hardly a wife but feels it.” | We talked about things for half an hour or so and I feel that the time wais not wasted. Her worries were unbottled and the sharing of them may minimise them, if not cause them to disappear. * * * * It was only the other _ day that b husband against whom a similar charge had been made opened his heart to me. “ Women are funny, Doc,” he said. “ The fact that you’ve chosen them against the whole blinking world is nothing in their young lives. They expect you to keep on .telling them they’re marvellous till the day they die. It’s all damn nonsense and vanity. A man doesn’t expect his wife to keep telling him she loves him all the week.” Maybe . . . There’s probably something of truth on either side, as in most other debatable problems. What is love ? An 'utterly uncontrollable disease (highly contagious in susceptible eases) against which there is no immunity. One attack by no means protects the sufferer from further ones. Medically *peaking love <ean,_ andl often does, affect the gastric juices, heart beats, and whole mental outlook. On the other hand love is probably, in its essence just an expression of glandular activity. Ain’t life gland? 1 Tuesday, February 22. “I’ve, cut out potatoes,” said Mrs Lightly triumphantly ,to-day. She is overweight and I have been recommending the cutting down of her carbohydrates. ... This is a common error in dieting. Potatoes are valuable food, and unless for some very' special reason should never be eliminated from the diet. “Don’t do that,” I advised her. “ Better to cut down bread, cakes, and sugar, especially the latter.” “ But aren’t potatoes too starchy?, ” Mrs Lightly protested. “ They contain starch,” I replied. “ But the point is that they also contain valuable mineral salts and vitamins. Incidentally, the layer containing these is a narrow strip just under the skin. That is why it’s better to cook potatoes in their skins. Enthusiastic peeling merely removes the best part of them.” Wednesday, February 23. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but not at 4 o.’clock in the morning,” said Kenneth Jacobs, grimly, when I asked him how he was getting on this morning. (He is in hospital recovering from a severe illness.) “ Meaning precisely what?, ” I asked him. “ This infernal diabolical idea that hospitals have of waking you out of a sound sleep between 4 and 5 in the morning to wash you and take your temperature,” he »aid. I promised to inquire about it, and was rewarded by a sharp conflict with ’the matron, who inquired acidly if I would prefer my patients- to be dirty when I called on the morning round. _ “ Quite definitely so,” I replied, “ if it is a choice between a little dust or a broken night’s rest.” I thereupon gave instructions that Jacobs was on no account to bo wakened if he was having a good sleep. “To him,” I explained, “ sleep is more essential than medicine.” He has great difficulty in getting off before midnight, and to wake him at 4 to take Ids temperature, or sponge him is ridiculous.

There is no doubt in my mind that hospital routine needs a thorough examination and at least partial reorganisation. It is useless to blame matrons or committees, for the fault rests just as much with the general public who expect 24 hours work to be done by two shifts of nurses. Nothing is more undesirable than to wake a sick person to wash him or takehis temperature, hut if only a limited amount of labour is available to do these quite necessary jobs the work apparently must he done with relentless disregard for the comfort of the victims. Thursday, February 24. “ Bob’s had an accident. Someone threw; a stone at him and broke something inside his leg. Could you come qi once.” It was this message this afternoon which led mo to Bob Syme’s house. It appears chat he was playing tennis when all of a sudden he felt a terrific blow in the back of his leg. He fell on the court, and had to be helped off. The" funny thing was, his wife explained, that they couldn’t find the stone nor the person who threw it. Only for the fact that no hole could be found they would have concluded that it was a bullet. ‘‘There was no stone,” I told Bob. “ You have ruptured a little muscle at the back of your leg. It is called the plantaris muscle, and because it goes so often at tennis some wag has christened it the playin’ tennis muscle. I will strap your calf for you, and you must get a bootmaker to build up your too about 2in on the affected side. It may take a month to recover.” Friday, February 25. Worthwhile extracts from this week's reading;— ON FOOD. The League of Nations’ Committee on Nutrition emphasises that there is a shortage ot foundation foods in most modem civilised diets. In order, the

most important foods for mankind are: —Milk, milk products, eggs, green leafy vegetables, fruit, muscle meat. On Baldness. Baldness is mostly hereditary > a sort of hairloom. On Office Efficiency. The ideal employer is the_ man who can put his workers at their ease all the time. On Nose Bleeding. To keep still, with the head held well back, is generally a sufficient remedy for a bleeding nose. _ Ice held over the bridge of the nose is also excellent. Names in this diary are fictitious. Copyright.