AN IMAGINARY COMPLAINT.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 July 1920, Page 3

AN IMAGINARY COMPLAINT.

TRIUMPH OF MIND OYER BODY, TIMARU, July 21. A curious case of how the mind can on occasion triumph over the body was mentioned at a meeting of the South Canterbury Hospital Board to-day. A resident of the country wrote to the Board complaining that be bad sent his wife to Timaru Hospital with a poisoned hand for treatment. The resident medical officer (Dr Fraser) had operated on the hand and discharged the patient two days later. She left that day for her home by train, but on the journey she had to be taken off the train and placed in a private hospital, where a doctor bad been called in to operate again on her hand. The husband desired to know why an operation at a private hospital was necessary after his wife had been discharged from the public hospital ? Dr Fraser said the explanation was that the woman was suffering from hysteria, and not from a poisoned hand. Her temperature . was normal, and though lie had operated on her hand twice (expecting to find pus there, on account of the intense pain of which she complained) ,he could find nothing wrong with it. A letter was received from the country doctor who had operated on the liqnd after Dr Fraser, stating that he too, diagnosed the case as one of hysteria. He found no signs of pus, but allowed the patient to think that ho bad done so, and after this she Tiad recovered. The Board accepted their me. dical'officer’s explanation as quite satisfactory.