SIR,—Mr. James Brailsford refers in his article on 'Slipped Discs'
to fashion in illness. Not so long ago, in any English village, all one heard about illness, was an allusion to the squire's gout or to old Mrs. Grump's 'rheumatics.' Now, since the National Health Act has got under way, in this village of about 1,500 souls where we live, it is a familiar sight to see a white ambulance pursuing its path through the main street to reap its harvest of clients, be they for observation, treatment or detention. Admission for one or other of these reasons to the hospital some six miles away has become almost a social aspiration. Ex- patients, rapidly becoming a large proportion of our small population, talk of it affectionately as of an ofti school, while others look forward with obvious relish to the next happy reunion in the out-patients' waiting room. Conversation in street, pub or institute centres round the 'ops' of the week, ranging from the ever- popular slipped disc to what for a long while was spoken of in awed tones as 'Mr. Eden's complaint' The prize for originality last week went to a veteran of seventy who had an eyelid removed and is to have a new one grafted. ('It's wonderful what they do, you know !') Families vie with each other to produce the rarest of ailments, and village gossips dine out, as the saying goes, on the surgical details so readily divulged.
It is hard sometimes to share the implicit faith of the sufferers and their relatives in the cures which will result from their enthusiastic submission to doctor's orders and the surgeon's knife. Furthermore, it is disquieting to reflect on the effect this mass pre- occupation with sickness will have on our mentality. A woman friend of mine, arriving here recently from Canada, was forcibly struck by what seemed to her a morbid obses- sion. 'Out there,' she said, 'if anyone is ill they mostly cure themselves with common sense and determination and no one ever talks about it.'
Is it possible that our National Health Act, with all its sound and excellent intentions, is transforming our sturdy British race into a nation of hypochondriacs?—Yours faithfully, AN APPLE A DAY
Previous page
