“HUMBUG PATIENTS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 9

“HUMBUG PATIENTS”

COMPLAINT AT MEDICAL CONFERENCE COMPENSATION SEEKERS (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) SYDNEY, Friday. Dr. Minogue, of Sydney, submitted re markable figures relating to nervous disorder cases which were the subject of compensation claims, speaking at the Medical Conference today. In 23 of such there were only four complete recovei'ies, recovery being rapid after the compensation claims had been settled for lump sums, he said. In 17 cases in which no claim foi' compensation was involved there were 12 complete recoveries. There was a distinct tendency among unskilled workers of low intelligence to regard such illnesses as a haven of refuge, and in spite of remedial measures many clung tenaciously to their symptoms. “We may suspect that some of our patients are humbugs and plausible rogues, but how can we prove it? If a man swears he has a pain can we swear he has not? Our humanitarian laws have capitalised the infirmities of the neurotic.” Dr. Ivan Maxwell, of Melbourne, discussed asthma. He said hay fever was frequently the precui-sor of asthma. House dust was also a factor in causing asthma, as were kapok, wool, or pollen. People who x’eacted to dust should sleep out ox doors, or in a room devoid of window curtains and other collectors of dust.