Don't Watch Out
OES the fear of contracting a disease render a person susceptible to that particular disease? This question was put to the Brains Trust, in a session which I heard direct from the BBC. It might be thought that these hard-headed experts would discount such a suggestion as an old wives’ tale, but no; they actually answered the question in the affirmative, although with a qualification. Fear of a certain disease, they announced, would indeed render’ the patient susceptible to disease, although not necessarily to the particular disease mentioned. An instance was given — people who fear diphtheria for example, often gargle with weird remedies and irritating antiseptics, thereby getting their throats into a perfect state for the reception of diphtheria germs. Other instances of human folly in this respect might be given, and it is as well to realise (with particular reference to the present infantile paralysis in the south) that no preventive medicines are as effective as the sensible health-routines publicised in newspaper and radio by the Health Department, and that to ignore commonsense and resort to quackery encouraged by fear is merely to revett to the dictatorship of witchcraft.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 350, 8 March 1946, Page 13
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193Don't Watch Out New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 350, 8 March 1946, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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