634

In England Now

A Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents0 what can ail thee, babe in arms,

Perpetually bellowing ?Hideous is the noise you makeAnd deafening.

0 what can ail thee, babe in arms ? Pipe down, you little so-and-so.

Mum says your guts are working fine-And Mum should know.

Your face is anything but pale,Your urine is a great success,

Throat, abdo, chest, and ears are clearAnd C.N.S.

Nurse diagnosed and cured the babeAnd silenced his unearthly din.

Piercing his buttock she espied ’

A safety-pin.* * *

The blossom is out once more--not in our rain-sodden gardens, but at the Daily Mail Ideal HomeExhibition, which remains open at Olympia untilMarch 31. Here can be seen azaleas, camellias, clematis,magnolias, prunus, rhododendrons, and many othershrubs in full bloom, with bulbs and rock plants at theirbases and beside them roses and carnations. The gardensas always wake us up from the dull, dreary months ofwinter, and our thoughts turn from the tiresome con-troversies of today to the colour, splendour, and peaceof a cool summer evening. This year the houses in theVillage of Ideal Homes have been set off by a centralgarden. Of special interest among the six houses is thatof the Women’s Institutes ; this house embodies theideas of 400,000 women who filled in questionaries.On an electricity stand a house-parlour-maid and cookare sitting in a kitchen ; this tableau will certainly be ofhistoric interest to the younger generation. The Fashionand Beauty section supplies sound factual evidence forthe advocates of "

make-up." There is an excellentdemonstration of a new window-cleaner, and a well-known product for killing indoor smells strives valiantlybut unsuccessfully beside a demonstration of frying.There is a new section exhibiting books, where manyhundreds can be examined. The Royal Air Force showsthe improvements in the design and furnishing of theirmarried quarters, while the Army’s new barrack-blockmust surely amaze many old and not-so-old soldiers, asalso will the modern private’s choice of bedside books.In another part of the exhibition the NAAFI show modelsof some of their clubs.Interwoven into this exhibition are lessons for every-

one. The police advise about protection against burglary,the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents teach roadsense and manners, and the W.V.S. look after a modelof an accident-prone house. The Grand Hall is lit byten chandeliers, and dominating it at one end is a replicaof an arch of the Crystal Palace. Although there is oneexhibit showing the South Bank, it is surprising howlittle the Festival is in evidence. It is still an exhibitionof every aspect of home life.

* * *

" Darling, isn’t Cortisone ’ a sort of linoleum ? "

* * *

Broadcast health talks are all very well, but listenerswill keep fitting the wrong caps on their heads or theirfamily’s. For instance, the best way to reduce one’sweight no doubt is to eat less, but some qualifying wordsof warning are required. A little starvation will do noharm to the overweight man or woman of middle agewhose fires are beginning to die down, but how aboutyoung people ? One cold evening, soon after listeningto the talks on fat-reduction, I was visited by the chair-man of the parish council ; he came ostensibly fora specimen of my signature, but actually to talk aboutis secretary, a girl of twenty. Apart from asthma sinceh

the age of two, she seemed healthy until this autumn,when she had pleurisy. After that she was repeatedlyradiographed and was reported to have a " doubtfulshadow." Finally she was pronounced non-tuberculousand fit to return to work shortly, though she must comeagain every month for examination.

Mr. Chairman wanted to unburden himself abouttwo things. One was slimming. Like many girls of herage, his secretary was plump but not fat, and-like mostof them-she wished she was slim and elegant. Havinglearnt from women’s magazines and B.B.C. talks thatthe proper way to get thinner is to eat less, she reducedher intake so thoroughly that by the autumn her lunchwas down to one rye biscuit and an orange. I agreedheartily with my visitor that this was wrong. Nexthe asked whether I thought the girl really had tuber-culosis. This is one of the awkward and unanswerablequestions that people ask when they get a doctor alone,and, as ever, there was more behind it. Mr. Chairmanconfessed that his mother died of tuberculous kidneys,and her long and painful illness gave him as a boy ahorror of the disease. Obviously he does not wanta T.B. secretary, and would be glad of a clearer diagnosisthan " We think not, but..." He talked to me because no doctor in the Health

Service ever seems to have time to listen. Laments ofthis kind reach me from all sides : " My doctor neverexplains anything. Can you tell me why ... ? " or" The doctors are always run off their feet these daysand I don’t like to bother them." They catch me whenI am out for a walk or posting letters at windy corners ;they grab me as I pass their garden gate, confide inme over shop counters, or whisper in my ear at parishcouncil meetings. The worst (except for the windycorners) is when they telephone. An unknown womanrang me up last week and talked about her distressingproblem for about five minutes before she drew a breathand I could interrupt to ask, " Why are you tellingme all this ? " Her only reply was, " Mrs. X said youmight be able to advise," and then she started off again.Mentally anathematising Mrs. X, a doctor’s grass widowand a friend of mine, who should have known better,-1 listened for ten to fifteen minutes and spent anotherfive persuading the voice that, willing as I was to helpher, the right person to consult was her own doctor,whom I knew to be kind and sensible even if overworked.Now that much of the old family doctor relationship

has gone, many people are feeling the lack of someonethey can talk to about the health problems which over-flow into their daily lives. My G.P. colleagues give methe reverse side of the picture. When they are so rushedthat there is no time for any but snap diagnoses, theyclearly cannot listen to long tales of their patients’worries and give them the reassurance and common-senseadvice which is all that most of them want.

It is easy to see why the radio talks and newspaperand magazine articles on health are increasingly popular.But though many of these are ably constructed, easyto understand, and correct in substance they cannottake the place of the spoken interview, with question andanswer and mutual consideration of the individualsituation. How would it be if those of us who are nolonger physically fit to join actively in the fray weregiven an ohicial niche-like a citizens’ advice bureau,only more medical-where we could do some weedingout and lighten a little the burdens of both our over-worked colleagues and our anxious fellow citizens ?

* * *

The scene was the medical outpatients departmentof a children’s hospital, where a mother had brought hersmall daughter because she had fits. After eliciting a longfamily history of fits the registrar asked whether therewas any backwardness in the family. Like a flash camethe reply : "Aye, Doctor, her sister comes down thestairs backwards."

* * *

" Who is arranging the funeral, Mrs. Jones ? "" The Co-op. They do it ever so nice, doctor, and

you get your divi too."* * *

Aphorism of the Week’

Colostomies are easier opened than closed.