The Diary of a Doctor Who Tells

Evening Star, Issue 23729, 9 November 1940, Page 3

The Diary of a Doctor Who Tells

Monday, November 4. “ What happens when you get a fright?” 1 asked Harry Fallen this evening. “1 suppose I get pale or break out into a sweat,” he said. “ Medically, your pulse races, your blood pressure rises, your eyes dilate, and perhaps your fingers and other parts of you tremble,” I added. “ Sounds like a hell of a fright to me,” he. grinned. “ Anyway, where’s it all leading to?” It’g leading to the story that fear, anxiety, and worry can have a distinct action on circulation,” I replied. “ And circulation is a matter of heart and arteries. Henco the saying that overworry can do nearly as much as overexereise to harm the heart.”

“You mean, in other words, that I ought to give up the office altogether till my old ticker settles down a bit,” he said.

“ You’ve guessed it,” I replied. “ And the fact that your arteries have hardened and will probably have a certain amount of hardening for the rest of your life also indicates that you must adjust your blood, flow to suit their weakness. There is a limit to the amount of blood a hardened artery can safely carry at a certain pressure. Our body is a magnificently constructed machine with each section interdependent on the other. The heart and arteries are guided and guarded in some measure by nerves of what is called the “ sympathetic ” nervous system. Among other things this system (which has nothing to do with the ordi-nary-long nerves that move our muscles and register our superficial pains) acts in sympathy with our emotions and the glands that react to them. We have a shock, feel pugnacious, and crouch breathless on guard. Actually our adrenal gland is pouring out secretion to act on our .sympathetic nervous system. The little arteries next to the skin are told to close, and so we pale. The little sweat glands are told to pour out their secretion, and so our forehead dampens and, our hands get cold and clammy. Tiny sympathetic, nerves tell certain muscles in the eyes to act, and so our pupils dilate. What Harry Pellen has to note is that certain other “ sympathetic ” nerves linked up with the heart and arteries also react after fear and worryin such a way that it is stimulated adversely. Our body is the most wonderful machine ever invented. What a pity we know so little about how to get the .best out of it I

Incidentally, our heart doesn’t control our emotions. It reacts to them.

Tuesday, November 5, “ But why haven’t they found a cure for cancer?” demanded Leslie Tracoll, truculently. “Surely -they’ve had enough money!”

“Discoveries aren’t a matter of money, or, at least, not exclusively so,” I said defensively. “ After all, modern medicine is scarcely 100 years old. In that time it’s discovered an enormous number of secrets.” “Medicine is thousands of years old,” retorted Tracell. “In the last 100 years you’ve just put the frills on it.” • ■ -

“ Quite wrong,” I protested. “ Modern medicine is responsible for such dramatic things as anesthetics, the art of successful surgery, antiseptics, the conquests of plagues, social diseases, typhoid and its allies, also of many sorts of germs, anaemias and diabetes and diphtheria, and a host of other ailments that killed off the bulk of the population in 1840.”

“ But you often read that in the long ( run research people merely rediscover what the old-time doctors found out thousands of years ago,” said Tracell.

“ Very occasionally that’s true,” I said, “ but only very occasionally, and it’s only partly true.” “What’s an example?” persisted Tracell.

“Probably tuberculosis,” I said. “ The greatest of all doctors, Hippocrates, who lived hundreds of years n.c., specialised in lung troubles, for which he prescribed rest and sunshine, plenty of nourishing food and plenty of milk. That’s part of pur treatment to-day, but only part. We have valuable surgical aids, from the mild pneumo-thorax

Heart Doesn't Control Emotions

(collapse of the lung) to definite operations.'’

With all Europe’s horrors of modern warfare and civilian bombing the population of London is much more secure, healthy, and comfortable than it was in the misnamed Good Old Hays.

Those heroes of old, the Crusaders, distinguished themselves chiefly in the history of Europe in that they brought back from the Near East all the epidemics of the day.

As one writer put it: “ They became a living bridge by which dephtheria, smallpox, leprosy, and scarlet fever made their fateful entry.”

Wednesday, November 6. “ The trouble, of course, is that she’s red-headed. Men simply can’t resist remark was made by Miss Maud Verren'3 a visitor at afternoon tea today. She looked at me disapprovingly as she said it, regarding me for the moment as the embodiment of male conversation concerned an Erring Sister who has scandalised our suburb by disappearing with a hitherto entirely virtuous husband belonging to a wife by whom he has had three bonnie children. “ I don’t think her hair was necessarily the cause, of the disaster,” I said mildly. “ Many men are entirely disinterested in red hair. Others are even adversely allergic to it.” “ I’ve never met any iiko that, sniffed Maud. Actually, there are many men who remain unmoved by Titian beauty. Despite Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and Nell Gwyn, there have been other great lovers who had those blonde tresses which gentlemen are said to prefer—even though they marry brunettes. , It is an interesting sidelight on the male psychology that many men are definitely attracted towards the one type of hair, be it blonde, dark, or copper. Some men inevitably fall for blondes while brunettes leave them emotionally untouched . . . and vice versa.

Friday, November 1. “ Why don’t you go to the mountains? ” I asked Mrs Olliu. who came to pay an account to-day and took opportunity to ask for advice on a suitable December holiday’ resort for the family.

“ No, thank vou.” she said, with considerable emp'hasis, “all the chest cases in the world go there. The air must be full of infection.”

“ I think you’re wrong,” I said. “ In my opinion, infection is a matter of reasonably close and fairly sustained contact,' indoors as a general rule. I think it’s wrong t'o think of germs floating round in air seeking whom they may devour. “ I’ve "always heard you should never live next to a hospital with infectious cases,” protested Mrs Ollin. “ Possibly the best-known chest hospital in the Empire—if not in the world —is in the middle of a populous and popular district of London,” I replied. “ I have never seen any figures to suggest that the inhabitants of that area have any greater tendency to lung trouble than inhabitants of other parts of the city where there are no chest hospitals.” Names in this diary are fictitious. Copyright.

Thursday, November 7, ’ “ Now that summer’s on us, the children spend their week-ends almost nude on the beaches,” said Mrs worth. “ You can’t describe the modern bathing suit for women and trunks for men as anything else but the last step before nudism. I suppose it’s good for them? ”

“ Not necessarily,’’ 1 said. “It is true that sunshine is_ good for most skins, more especially if in conjunction with salt water, but it’s equally true that the fairer and more especially tho redder types of skin should be very careful against undue exposure to it, “ But it’s good for the general health, isn’t it? ” asked my patient. “ No,” I said. “In point of fact, long exposure to sunshine can definitely bo harmful in some cases—apart from sun-stroke. A modest amount of sunshine may be good, but a large amount may be the reverse.”