MEDICAL MANNERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19792, 12 November 1927, Page 6 (Supplement)

MEDICAL MANNERS.

THE CHEERFUL DOCTOR.

The other day I read somewhere that doctors could be roughly divided into two classes —the " Pooh Poohs " and the " Wind Ups " 1 never read anything more entirely true.

I admire the "Pooh Pooh" doctor. Give me one every time—yes, every time. You leel ill, deadly ill, your heart is thumping (largely with fear), and you remember somebody's symptoms, and you think you have got " something" too. You send an urgent message to your doctor. Will he please come in 1 He feels your pulse, asks you a few questions, and says: " You've been overdoing it; take a day in bed, very light j meals, nothing but fruit if it suits you—aspirins ? Well, you can have one if you like —but don't take too many of those beastly lowering things. " Take your blood pressure with a pulse like that ? It's not necessary.' Let me know how you get on, little lady, .[f 1 don't hear I shall know you are all right." And he goes ofE smiling. You are away from home and you send for a stranger. He may be a " Pooh Pooh" man, too. On the other hand he may not. He may look very gravely at vou. " Have you had your eyes tested 1 No, nothing as yet, but you never know—and people are so apt to leave things till too late." Power of Suggestion. He takes your blood pressure, purses up his lips and won't tell you what it is. Ha talks of poisoning and diet and low vitality and high something else, and he writes you a prescription with an air of almost painful concentration. When you press him ho acknowledges you have nothing yet, but if you feel like this in spite of the medicine he can tell _ you where to get X-rayed, and ho knows , a dentist who will take all your teeth out He leaves you, in schoolboy language, ir a blue funk —or feeling very important, according to your temperament. Personally I inclino towards the blue funk.

On the whole doctors are a very cheery set of men, and only warn you when it is necessary. They realise the value of suggestion. Suggestion plays an enormous part in all small ailments Moreover, the cheery man is the first to be serious and emphatic when he sees the necessity of it. The Wind-Up man (I like to give every one the benefit of the doubt) does not realise the sometimes terrible effect of suggestion, lie is apt to distil a very subtle poison. Our minds are sadly dependent on our bodies, our bodies often entirely dependent on our minds.

Most doctors have only one object in view, and that is the cure and the prevention of disease, and they realise that much of the prevention and sometimes even the cure of many of our diseases is the entire elimination of our fears, and all honour is duo to those who help us to put them away.—Lady Neish in the Daily Mirror.