The Diary of a Doctor Who Tells

Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 3

The Diary of a Doctor Who Tells

Monday, August 21. “ It’s no good telling me to take a long rest, Peter,” said my friend, lloger Bankson, irritably. I’ve got tvhere I am because I’ve given everything my personal attention. I can only keep there the same way.” “ Then, my lad,” I said, “ all I can say is that you’re a damn bad managing director.”

He Wanted To Do Everything Himself

“ The trouble with you doctors is that you know nothing about business,” he retorted. “You say ‘ take three months off ’ in the same carefree way as you’d tell the maid she could have the night off.” “The trouble with you business men,” I retaliated, “ is that you know nothing about the business of running your body. You regard it as something that will put up with an indefinite amount of lack of rest, exercise, and general consideration. You then come along and say you have dizzy turns and slight headaches, and ask for a bottle of medicine to soften your hardened arteries.” t “ Well, any way, 1 tell you I can t leave the business now,” said Bankson. “ We’re having a particularly difficult year, and I’m not going to see the whole thing go up in smoke.” “ Last year was difficult. The year before was difficult, and next year will be just as difficult,” I persisted. “ You’ll still have a pack of nincompoops as heads of your departments.” “ Here, wait a minute.” said Roger indignantly. “ Who said anything about nincompoops ; J ” ‘‘ You did,” I replied, “ when you told me you couldn't trust them to run the show for a few weeks. That’s why I called you a damn bad managing director.. Any head man who hasn’t had enough brains to choose men who can run the show' if he wants to got away for a while should resign.” “You talk as If they grew on every tree,” said Roger bitterly. “If you knew the number of times I’ve been let down . . .”

“ It probably equals the number of times you’ve let them clown by refusing to let them try and stand on their own feet.” I said cheerfully. “ Anyhow, thi-s talk gets us nowhere, you’ve got a blood pressure too high for a man of 45. I’ll be brutally frank and tell you that it’s not unlikely you’ll have a stroke within 10 years if it continues the way it’s going. You know, of course, that strokes are generally the result of high pressure.” “ You’re trying to scare mo,” said .Roger with less confidence. l! I know,” I said. “ I’ve tried every other* approach. It so happens that the scare is backed by worthwhile evidence.”

Roger stared out the window for fully a minute before he spoke. “ What do you want,me to do?” he said at last. “ A month off in the country,” 1 said. “ Then come back and let’s have a look at you. Meanwhile face the facts like a man and make up your mind that you’ll never be able to work in the future as hard as you have in the past. In short, face the terrible prospect of how to be happy on about £1.500 a year instead of £3,000.” So many people die early because the business of living is the one they think least worthy of their attention. Tuesday, August 22.

“ We’ll need a blood transfusion,” I said to the Kennedy’s, whose son had a serious accident yesterday.

“ I’ll give whatever blood is needed,” said a brother immediately. “ Thanks, old chap.” I said. ‘‘ But we would have to find out if you’re the right type. You know there are a number of different blood types, and it's not only useless, but dangerous, to mix wrong types, JL’U sepi a taxi for

one of the hospital’s regular donors. He’ll be here in 10 minutes.” “ We don’t doubt your word,” said the father, “ but just what does our boy need a transfusion for, doctor?” “ He’s lost a lot of blood-,” I said, “ and wo want to replace the fluid to begin with. But he needs something stronger than the usual ‘ normal saline ’ stuff we generally use. If he gets some good healthy red corpuscles in aim it’ll buck him up a bit as well.” Blood donors have organised themselves excellently of late. They are a group doing valuable humanitarian work, at the same time safe in the knowledge that their kindly deed harms them not at all.

The latest step is the organisation of “ blood banks,” where sufficient quantities of all blood types can he kept on tap. This month a medical journal reported a further in the organisation of a blood-collecting depot m an English city. There are 10,000 donors standing by to start pouring their blood into the “ blood bank ” in the event of national emergency. In no time there would bu thousands of pint bottles of life-giving fluid ready to be flown by dozens of planes to any front-line anny hospital where the need is urgent. Wednesday, August 23.

Although I am a medicine man, I refuse to point the bone at anyone. It takes extraordinary circumstances to make me tell anyone that his case is either hopeless or desperate. After all, if you destroy hope, what further incentive remains for life? Most medical men follow the same idea and are very sceptical about the oft-told tale of the patient whom all the doctors gave up but who recovered after taking two bottles of So-and-so’s Cure-all, or after a visit to a gentleman (sometimes coloured) of no University degree, but wonderful natural gifts. I was reminded of this to-day, when a patient triumphantly told me about Annie Gradley, who has been coming to me off and on for years about her dyspepsia. Frankly, I failed to cure her. though 1 always impressed on her that there was no physical cause for her ailment. It was a case of “ nerves,” or psychological uncertainty. I had wanted her to go to a psychiatrist but she always refused. And now Annie is reported to be in the bloom of health, having gone to a gentleman who had given her spiritual comfort and physical ease. Good luck to him and to her. He has triumphed where I failed . . . at least for the moment. Time will be the final arbiter.

But, as I told my patient, J at no time said that Annie was beyond medical aid or that her early demise was likely. Many such ,spectacular “ cures ” are of the same character. Thursday, August 24.

“ I suffer from an awful Jot of gas in the stomach,” was Harry Wenn’s complaint this evening. “ Besides causing me a lot of personal bother, it tends to upset the household when f have to get rid of it. I’m frightened it might lead to something serious.” 1 explained to Harry the fairly modern view that gas is rarely formed in the stomach and that the symptoms that resemble it are really caused by swallowing air, a very common practice. The modern view also accentuates that the condition causes more disturbance to the listener than to the patient. In other words, it is organically harmless. if socially disastrous. “ If you want to prove it.” I said, “stand in front of a mirror next time an attack conics on. You’ll be able to watch the rise and fall of your Adam’s apple as you swallow the air. if you

further shove a large cork in your mouth and keep the mouth open, the attack will probably stop. If you can get hold of the cork early enough it may prevent the attack coming on.” Friday, August 25. Last night at the Ibcal church, Stephen Haskell and Rita Wearue were formally declared a committee of two with power to add to their numbers. It was in connection with the latter eventuality that they visited me earlier in the week asking my advice on whether the first year of their married life was a satisfactory time for all concerned. “ Some say that the first year babies are the healthiest and others tell me that it is better to wait till life becomes calmer and less anxious,” said Rita, with the direct approach of modern youth. “We thought we’d better ask a doctor about it.” “ First let me say that I know of no scientific figures that prove the case one way or the other,” T said. “My personal view is that a baby arriving somewhere about the end of the first year of married life is a decided asset to the family circle. It means certain sacrifices on the part of the young bride, but I have never found one who didn’t think it worth while.” “ I don’t suppose I’m a very abnormal person,” said Rita, blushing quietly. And so to-night I’m sending them a family physician’s blessing as their frail barque of matrimony breaks its first sail on the turbulent sea of life. (Names in this Diary are fictitious. Copyright.)