A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK S YMPATHY is fortunately not exhausted by exercise.
Shar- ing to the utmost, as it does, the anxiety of the Queen and the Princesses and Queen Mary, the nation can still, I hope, spare a thought for the doctors who are bearing so heavy a weight of responsibility. How heavy the layman does not know, for there has been no- information yet to indicate how critical were the decisions it was necessary to take. There have been cases of grave strain thrown on the nervous systems of doctors concerned with serious illness in-the Royal Family in the past. On the other band, the King's medical advisers have much to fortify them. It is the high claim of the profession that all the skill and devotion it commands are at the service of the poorest ifmate of a general ward no less than of a sovereign in his palace. In attendance on the King they need do no more, and can do no more, than they ;would for any patient. But that is not quite all the truth. Every major operation involves risk, and there must inevitably be more hesitation in incurring it when the life of a monarch is in question than when one of his fifty million subjects in this country is con- cesned—though that is, in fact, countered, or complicated, by the fact that to refrain from operating may involve a still greater 'risk. There are decisions most of us would dread to have to make, and we shall not forget the men who cannot evade decision.
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