THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

Evening Star, Issue 25678, 29 December 1945, Page 8

THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

MIND AND MATTER Monday, December 24. As usual, the surgery has been practically deserted this Christmas Eye. When there is much to do, festivities at hand, and good fellowship in the air, the demon of illness is at a disadvantage. The philosophy is not new. Proverbs has it: "A merry heart doth good like a medicine; but a broken "spirit drieth the bones." The " influence of mind over matter " has now turned into the sciences of psychology and psychiatry. We know, too, that fear acts on the adrenals, tenses the. muscles, constricts the little blood vessels of the face so that it pales, gives the stomach a sick feeling, and dilates the pupils of the eyes. We know that excitement alters the action of the heart and makes the breath come quicker. We know that great sorrow acts on the tear ducts of the eye and decreases the appetite. The saying that "We are what we eat "should hare the addendum, "and what we feel."

Tuesday,. December 25. "I'm awfully sorry to worry you on Christmas Day," said the prim voice of Mrs Harton on the phone this morning, " 'but Eva has a temperature and I'm worried about her. She won't eat anything. She's in bed, and I was wondering if you could possibly call m. ■. " Well, this is too bad," I said in my best family practitioner voice to six-year-old Eva an hour or so later. " Sick on Christmas Day! I bet Santa Clans came all the same." "Eva knows there is no Santa Claus," said Mrs Harton coldly from the other side of the bed. "We've never allowed anyone to lie to her about anything, and we've been quite frank ourselves about everything." " Mother and father gave me'a book each," said Eva. Eva had nothing worse than temporary gastric disturbance, and as traditional Christinas is apparently not observed in the Harton household, my advice to have nothing but water for the next few hours may not worry her Aiduly. " Without- fantasy," writes a professor of child psychology in a book just issued, " life would become intellectually and culturally static. The importance of fantasy cannot be overestimated."

The line between lie and fantasy is not easy to draw when handling fantasy, but people who would kill Father Christmas sometimes have no hesitation in reciting that the cow jumped over the moon, a statement which the small child accepts with delight and quite literally. Little 80-Peep, Jack Horner, Marjorie Daw, Humpty-Dumpty, are all real people ... or at least real " pre-tending-people," as Wendy used to call them.

It is a brave person who would rub out the kindest fantasy of them all, genial Father Christmas, who makes the happiness of boys and girls his life's work. He is the spirit of Christmas, and, as such, very much alive. Talking of children, I like the story of the father who had to punish his youngest daughter before leaving for the office. As he came in the door in the evening, the five-year-old called icily: "Mother, your husband's home." Wednesday, December 26. " The children have gone to the beach for the day," said Mrs Harvey when I asked for them on arriving to visit her husband' who is having a bout of pneumonia. . ■ ' , "I thought it best to get them out of the way so dad can sleep. I'm always so scared of them getting this athlete's foot, though. Just what is it, exactly?" " It's a fungus infection of the foot," I said. " Some smart gentleman invented the name. It's not specially seen in athletes, as far as I know. Public bathing places are just as much involved in the spread as any other medium. The fungus can be picked up on floors and shoes."

" I've alway told them not to put anybody else's shoes or slippers on," 6aid Mrs Harvey. " But, just what is a fungus, anyway?' "In this instance, a ringworm," I said. "It makes a rash with blisters, or there can be softening or whitish skin between the toes."

"How can you prevent it?" asked Mrs Harvey. " Chiefly by never going about barefoot on any floor," I said, " and never using anyone else's shoes or slippers." " Don't they have special pools, or something, at the entrance to dressing sheds for everyone to put their feet in?" asked Mrs Harvey. " Yes," I said, " but I'm personally convinced the average one is not much use to prevent infection by fungus. The best way to handle the situation is to flush the floors of showers and near-by areas under pressure, scrub floors well with soap and water, and let every available duckboard or piece of flooring be exposed to the clear sunlight."

Thursday, December 27. " It's the pain just across the bottom of my back that worries me most," said middle-aged Mrs Anthony, who came complaining of " general run-downness," as she called it, this afternoon. " I suppose I've been stooping too much; or maybe it's my kidneys." " Had a busy Christmas? " I asked. " Oh, yes," she said. " A lot of relations live near us and they all seem to congregate at our place. It all makes work, you know," she continued, and added hastily " Of course, we love having them." I gave Mrs Anthony an overhaul and told her that her pelvic organs were displaced and that this, especially combined with tired muscles, could cause lower back pain. Appropriate treatment was suggested. Lower back pain is one of the commonest of human troubles, and is much commoner in women than men. It can be observed in a number of different conditions ranging from faulty posture to high-seated haemorrhoids. Mlamations and misplacements of organs of the pelvis and even tumors have to be thought of. Tired muscles in over-worked mothers may ache, just as tired muscles may ache after strain in the case of healthy men who may have over-exercised. The treatment of backache is first to find the cause and then apply the appropriate remedy.

A YEAR.OF CHANGE Friday, December 28. " Well it's good-bye 1945,' 'said the E, N and T Bloke, as he lifted his glass of sherry in the honoraries' room late this afternoon. (We wore having an end-of-the-year get-to-gether.) He added: " And good riddance."

"Oh, 1945 had its points," said the junior physician, " apart from being victory year. We learnt a lot about new uses for penicillin, for instance. And we're getting better knowledge of the sulpha drugs." " I don't mind admitting I've learnt a few things in 1945," chimed in the psychiatrist. " especially about shock treatment." " And blood plasma came into its own in the final stages of the war," said the junior physician. " And we began to get results with DDT in war zones."

" All right, all right," put in the E, N and T Bloke, hurriedly. " Here's to 1945, if that's how you feel about it. Personally, it gave me the stomachache." " Therejs no doubt that the face of medicine is changing, is there, sir? " said the junior physician to the senior, who had just come up to our group. " Remedies are changing, but the eternal verities remain," said the senior physician. " And while it's all very well to bow down and worship your modern aids to diagnosis—like X-ray, the various test-meals, electrocardiagrams, and other gadgets—the born physician remains the born physician." " But the treatments are changing vastly," persisted the junior physician. " They always have been," said the senior physician genially. " Oh, yes, I agree with you. When I was a young house-surgeon at the beginning of the century, the diabetics and pernicious anaemias, the cancers and so on mostly died. In those simple days, we set great store by simple drugs like morphia, iron, digitalis ..." " Steady, John," interrupted his friend, the senior surgeon, " you make it sound like the Middle Ages," " I suppose it really was the Middle Ages of medical treatment," said the senior physician simply,*" looking back from these penicillin days." " With the New Year just around the corner I realies I'm almost an old man," said the senior surgeon with sudden sadness. " Cheer up, my lad," said the senior physician. "No one who keeps on learning, and has an open mind, is ever old. Here's to 1946! " We raised our glasses, said goodbye, and drove home to evening surgery. (Names in this diary are fictitious.) (Coypright.)