THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

Evening Star, Issue 24328, 17 October 1942, Page 3

THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

GENERAL WHO BEAT THE GERMANS Monday, October 12. “ Well, how do you think the war’s going?” said the F.ar-Xose-and-Throat Bloke to the Old Physician in the honorary’s room this afternoon. “ 1 would have thought you’d been a doctor long enough to know that there’s only one answer to anyone who wants to know how anyone or anything is going,” said Father. “ And that is?” inquired the E-X----and-T Bloke. “ As well as earn ho expected.” said Father. “ Actually. I think we’re going reasonably well, when you think how far behind scratch wo started. But I’m waiting, of course, for the appearance of the General who has always beaten the Gormans through history.” “ I don't got you,” said the E-X----and-T Bloke.

“ Must you assist in the deterioration of the English language?” sighed Father. “ You mean you don't understand. “ Yes,” said the E-X'-and-T Bloke. “ I refer to General Louse,” said Father. “ You will remember how General Louse throw the Huns back in the fifth century the time they attacked Constantinople. You will remember how General Louse defeated William the Second of Prussia, and so on.” ‘‘ Typhus has defeated more than the Gormans,” said the Psychiatrist, who in his spare time is a medical historian. “You’ll remember Napoleon ?” “ There’s little solace for the Gormans iu that thought,” retorted Father “ The retreat from Moscow was a retreat from the Louse. Hitler may easily have to face the same problem if ever he gets fo Moscow.” “ A dramatic story,” said the Psychiatrist. “ Napoleon left the River Moskva with an army at about halfstrength. Something like a hundred thousand men were down with typhus. When ho reached Vilna in December there were left only twenty thousand men. And they all marched in the shadow of the Louse,”

“ A lousy subject for afternoon tea.” said the Junior Surgeon, who had come in during tin; discussion. “ Let’s talk about something you can eat.” Typhus is a disease of cold and temperate climates. It is carried by lice. Lire congregate where men are bundled together in cold weather and there are no bathing facilities. It is a violent fever with great prostration, a disease that makes men suffer quite different from typhoid. Tuesday, October 13. “ Oh, excuse me, everybody,” said a hearty man in a tram to-day just after ho sneezed a loud, explosive, uncovered sneeze. He hastily took out a noue-too-clean handkerchief and vigorously pushed Ids nose about with it. “ I’ve got a bad cold, like everybody else,” he said in explanation. To ask for pardon after sneezing all over half a dozen people is a poor penance. A sneeze has great power of expulsion. It expels infected air. As a matter of fact, most ordinary communicable diseases, from colds to tuberculosis, are convoyed by what is known as “ droplet ” infection. The germs are in the expired air, ■ be it sneezed out, coughed out, spluttered out, or just breathed out People with infections should carry large-sized handkerchiefs (ladies included), and cover the nose and mouth completely when air is forcibly sneezed or coughed. N. 8.: To stop a sneeze pinch the nose firmly between thumb and finger. Wednesday, October 11. “ Oh, no,” said Mrs Frauston, tearfully, “ 1 couldn’t possibly go to hospital. I’ve always had sucu a dread of them. Please" don’t send me. Do the operation here. It’s only a small one.” (Mrs Frauston comes from the Old Country, where even now operations are occasionally done in homes.) “ I’m very sorry,” i said, ” but I’an afraid it’s absolutely impossible. Don’t make up your mind to hate hospital before you get there. -Most people don’t find it as bad as they imagine these days.”

“ 1 know 1 shall hate it,” wept Mrs Franston.

1 have found that people who fear hospitals 6ften do so because a loved one has at some time or other suffered greatly or even died in one. Not that it was the hospital’s fault, but all of us tend to transfer our dislikes from objects to people, and vice versa. We dislike what a'thing stands for rather than disliking the thing itself. (Maybe we dislike doctors as a race because we dislike the thing that brings them into our homes—-i.e., illness.)

It has been well said that what is missing so greatly in ’ a hospital is privacy.

I am all for the theory that every hospital bed should be able to be completely screened from every other bed. As has been pointed out, privacy doesn’t mean seclusion. But it does mean privacy.

Thursday, October 15. livery now and again we hear of a “ hero ” who has defied medical advice and rushed from a sick bed to save his side in an important sporting final. Sometimes the tale is varied, in that the hero has been told by medical men never to play his particular sport again, yet, having ignored such instructions, has continued to perform, to the great delight of team mutes and audience.

Yes. Doctors make mistakes. Jiut patients make mistakes, too. Harold Herbert is a patieut who made a mistake. He was tin happily stricken with lung: trouble which was diagnosed a month ago. 1 ordered complete rest. Harold explained that bo couldn’t let his team down by deserting them at the critical part of the season, I tried to explain that his team shouldn’t, let him down by demanding Ids services at tlie cost of Ids health and possibly his lifo. He refused to cease actin' exercise and eon tinned bis training. They called me late this afternoon because be bad been brought home from the office after a severe luemorrliago. It is quite possible that Ids refusal to have immediate treatment when Ids condition was discovered may cost him his life.

I have an inkling that Harold was supported in his attitude by a garrulous old uncle who kept saying in a dial-

longing voice to me one day: “ Plenty of fresh air. sunshine, and exercise will soon fix np your T. 8.” The open-air exercise theory went out of fashion some time ago. The first treatment of tuberculosis is rest, not exercise. The answer to the question. “ What are the first symptoms of T.B. ?” is, “ There aren't any.” Friday, October 16. 1 like the recipe for health and happiness left by an unknown worshipper in Chester Cathedral: Give me a good digestion. Lord, And also something to digest; , Give me a healthy body. Lord. With sense to keep it at its best. Give me a mind that is not bored, That does not whimper, whine, or sigh. Don’t lot me worry over-much About the fussy thing called 1. Give mo a sense of humour. Lord. Give me the grace to see a joke ; To get some happiness from life, And pass it on to other folk. (Names in this Diary are fictitious.) Copyright.