The Diary of a Doctor Who Tells Red Flannel ... and All That

Evening Star, Issue 23325, 22 July 1939, Page 3

The Diary of a Doctor Who Tells Red Flannel ... and All That

Monday, July 17. “And how’s old Mrs Smith settling down to hospital life?” 1 asked tho hospital sister this morning. “ The dear old duck came in yesterday as arranged, complete with red flannel for both day and evening wear,” she replied, adding “ I suppose I’d better let her keep wearing them/’ “ Certainly,” 1 replied. “ She’d probably catch her death of cold if she left them off.”

“Half your charm, Dr Peter,” retorted the sister, “ is that in the midst of your most modern ideas about everyone and everything you occasionally fight strenuously for Victorianism.” “ Just reverting to type, I suppose,” I replied. “ Anyhow, flannel means warmth, and old people need warmth more than anything, especially in winter.”

“ I admit all that,” said the sister. “ But modern children, and especially modern girls, manage to keep warm and healthy in next to nothing, and none of it flannel.”

“ It all depends on climate,” I replied. “ What’s fair enough for Colombo is not so good in Alaska. In tho warmer parts of this country clothes can bo limited and light. In tho colder parts we want to wear things that will be sure to keep us Warm,”

“ Except the nudists,” said sister frivolously.

“ I’ve yet to meet a nudist from Iceland,” I retorted.

“ I suppose it’s because I’m so used to wearing a modern outfit that the thought of a fianncl petticoat gives me the vapours,” said the sister. “ It’s not what you have on in the house so much as what you put on to go out that’s the secret of keeping warm,” I said. “ It’s not only the oldfashioned doctor who believes that a too sudden change from warm rooms to cold out-of-doors inevitably lowers resistance, and that, prolonged lowered resistance invites susceptibility to colds and chest troubles.”

Men are the worst offenders in the matter of covering themselves with layers of thick clothes and sitting on top of fires and radiators, thus giving themselves selfcreated Turkish baths. To see some men disrobe in the outpatients’ departments and to note their steamy underclothes is to understand many of the colds of winter.

In cold climates flannel underwear is being talked of with enthusiasm. It slows down evaporation, and this lessens the chance of too sudden alteration in temperature round the skin. Recent reports from France tell of a series of experiments in French schools where the distribution of flannel underwear to the delicate children resulted in improved attendance records.

Tuesday, July 18. “ Baby has a growth,” said Mrs Willis in a frightened voice this morning. “ It’s in his stomach and getting bigger.” The growth turned out to be that common ailment, an umbilical hernia—in other words, a rupture in the region of the navel. It shows itself as an ordinary swelling. I calmed the mother’s fears about an immediate operation, and said that we would first try the time-honoured procedure of wrapping a penny in a piece of cotton wool and strapping it over the tumour. We would hope for a navel victory.

The umbilicus (and conditions associated with it) is becoming better known, and it is now one of the parts of tho body it is quite permissible to discuss without a lowering of voice and eyes.

Wednesday, July 19. “ Do come at once,” said the secretary of the golf club on the phone this afternoon. “ Sir Harry Tanner has just collapsed at one of the greens, and they’re bringing him in. Someone has just run over to get help.” Ten minutes later Sir Harry was coming round, though there was little one could do except keep him at rest, with plenty of air, and ring for an ambulance and a bed in the nearest hospital. A cursory examination by my stethoscope revealed an obvious heart condition. A heart specialist arrived later in the evening, and together we had a long talk with the rather distracted Lady Tanner, warning her that it was un-

likely that Sir Harry would be allowed out of bed for some weeks. “it is a serious heart condition, probably brought on by overwork,” said the specialist. “ We will know the exact nature after we have had an olectro-cardiagram done to-morrow. Meanwhile, rest is his best medicine, and no one but yourself must see him.” Wo went into the matron’s room for coffee and the wife returned to her. Well ?” I said, as the door closed behind us. , “ The old story, Peter,” replied my specialist friend. “ Working like the devil day and night and suffering from the delusion that an occasional rush round a golf course would help balance the health budget. He won’t get out of bed for weeks.” “There’s too much of this sort, of thing lately,” commented the specialist a few minutes later as ho drained his coffee cup. “ I think this modern craze for physical fitness has something to answer for in that it is, probably Unite innocently, leading people to believe that it’s essential for everyone to have perspiring exercise every few days. A Royal physician put it neatly the other day in the ‘ Journal.’ I suppose you saw it? ” “ I blush to say I haven’t read the ‘ Journal ’ the last few weeks. Too busy and all that,” I replied. “ Bad lad,” he said reprovingly. “Don’t miss a week. You never catch it up. Anyhow, this bloke said it was a fallacious idea that if one spends one’s time in a sedentary occupation and gives one’s brain a large amount of work to do, one must counteract this by taking plenty of physical exercise. The secret of physical fitness, he said, for the man who is obliged to do a large amount of mental work, is to get recreation associated with hygienic surroundings and a mere modicum of physical exercise. It’s specially true of the man who hasn’t much physical exercise in his younger life.”

Thursday, July 20. Nurse took Wendy into the winter sales to-day to buy some new clothes. “ And we went to a cathay (she has always called it ‘ cathay ’) for lunch.” said Wendy, telling me her adventures this evening, “ and there was so much on the menu I didn’t know what to have. I didn’t know there were so many things you could eat.”

So many things to cat? And they’re all only grass. Man is a grass-eating animal. Bread is wheat and Wheat is grass. Milk and dairy products come from the cow and the cow eats grass. Lamb chops are made by grass. Our various grain foods and even our drinks are primarily grasses. Grass is the greatest of all food supplies

Friday, July 21. “ I’m having unpleasant dreams lately,” said a patient to-day. “ I dream all night long. Sometimes 1 have as many as half a dozen dreams in the same night and then I wake up more tired than when I went to bed. They’re more like nightmares than dreams.”

“ Oh, and I’m always dreaming about funerals,” she added. “ That means death, doesn’t it, or do dreams go by the contrary? ’’

“ Dreams don’t go by anything,” I said. “ Nor do they foretell anything. The.y’re just nonsensical—topsy-turvy versions of the experiences, desires and fears we have had the previous day or two before.”

I suggested to this patient that she should go away for a holiday, possibly for a cruise, the idea being that new scenes and new faces would bring new thoughts and get her mind off the everday things of life that seemed to be worrying her at the moment. I also advocated a book of light essays or verses prior to turning out the light each night. It is a mistake for anyone to imagine that they dream all night long. It has been slated that the average length of a dream is 30 seconds. Tbe - classic example of this was probably Dickens’s celebrated dream recently niioted again in a science Journal. He imagined that he had died and he saw himself being taken along to the undertaker’s. When he got there he found there was no coffin for hinii so some workmen were railed and got to work on one. Just as the last nails were being imt in n workman drooped a board and Dickens awakened. Ho found bimself asleen in an arm ebair by a window from wbicb be noticed that a builder bad drooped a board. The whole dream had happened during this brief second. Names in this Diary are fictitious. Copyright.