1952-08-30 — Page 11

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1952.

ARE YOU SCARED TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR? A new series begins today

THE CHINA MAIL has sought the collaboration of doctors in this series. The hope in time it my bring relief to the thousands of men and women who are literally "worrying themselves sick." HIGH MOTIVES Bsually the fear that a family or career will suffer are making these people keep secret the dread that they are vic- ilms of some serious illness. But, the doctors will show, symp. toms can be misleading.

CLIN

FIRST, however, the series desia with one other fear that may make the conscientious mother and the ambitious husband, keep silent. It is:-

The

fear

of being

called

.. A

Illustrated by ROBB

HYPOCHONDRIAC

-N the old days hypochondria was almost confined to creative artists, dictators, millionaires, and a few thwarted types living out lives of self-inflicted solitude.

of the

Nowadays about one-sixth population over the age of 30 suffer from it.

The Oxford Dictionary defines hypo- chondria as "a morbid state of depression either causeless or due to (unnecessary) anxiety about health."

James Boswell, author of the famous "Life of Johnson," was one of the worst hypochondriacs in history. Every time draught

A

blew on him through n window he retired

to his bed with a purely imaginary

case of pneu→

monia, and

cach time he got a stye on hia

oye he

by

You are one if-

19 YOU nil your Piedātājas which Don't win alaim ta kilp tha mit. ment think YOU NEES 1

IF YOU USI

avary halider

an Blouse to call

on a new dietar

1

You think

an Karay”Dien that ham y nothing ALAT

br 1942

IF YOU ACK eftin struck by the insideñas “ -

the amen

You always know betler tran the men whe on the oilies.

case.

father of a couple of bonnie daughters, and downed his pint on Sunday' with the best of them.

Then suddenly he began to worry about his health. He came to the doctor, and complained that he was no longer aleeping at nights be. cause he had a terrible pain in his back.

:

A thorough examination failed to discover anything wrong with him. No rheumatism. No sign of any special acidity.

But the pain kept on, and it did not shift until Jim had taken a course at the local hospital of electric manage and vibration; after that he perked up and for a time was his old self again.

Then be developed n cough, "Not a deep-seated cough," said the doctor. "{ examined his chest and, there want nothing there, not even when we X- rayed him.

On And On

"It was a constant, infuriating little irritation-the sort of thing that drives you erazy, when you hear it at the cinema or theatre or a concert. It went on and on, and Jim's ththroom started filling up with gum-drops and syrups and throat-sprays."

Jim's cough lasted for five sarily into some kind of dis- months, during which he cursed all doctors for their ignorance, became a nag to his family, and was' convinced that he was -In- the first stages of galloping con- sumption.

They overwork doctors and clutter up hospitale with their fantastic ima- ginations. Their fictitious aches and pains can turn a normal home into a man- sion of misery.

I usked a doctor I know to define for me a couple of typical hypochondriacs who are worse luck for him --

on his visiting list.

Two Years Back

He is an ordinary general practitioner with a list of

a

Jim

The cough stopped. smiled again-for a couple of month. Then in quick succes- son he got a rash, a violent pain in his heart, and migraine headache; he's lost a couple of stone in weight and looks ter- rible. Yet some of the best specialists in the country say that, physically he's us sound as

bell,

"The difference between Jim Smith and another patient, Mrs Bell," said the doctor, is that Jim sometimes showed outward signs of something wrong.

paina "It's a sort of cramp i get," she says, "and a terrible dull ache at the base df my back. Sometimes 1 He rigid is

torment,"

}

Mrs boli la donvinced

་

that to

one day she will wake up find herself completely para lysed. But there is not a sign that she will ever be anything but healthy.

Chee upon tiho only im portant, people were typochon- drines. Nowaday we come on all walks of life and are at not necessarily portont all pleat examples of that

Wisc well-known · Americad crack:

Why, what do you know? He's got ulcers →→ And he's not even succesfull"

Her eyes? They are normal, MONDAY: : but sho woars · deep, dark". What -- are your symptoms? glosses all day, even indoors; A DOCTOR TELLS YOU, IF| and worries her husband he will be kind to her when ma distraction by asking whether YOU FEAR TOO MUCH she has gone biled....

to

Those are only a couple of enses Go into say doctor' waiting-room, ahut you will find dozens,

The Other Hypos..

There are the Food Hypo- chondriacs, who believe they will be UI if they eat certain things. Keep them Ignorant that the dish they have just esten contains forbidden foods like tomatoes or mushrooms, and nothing happens to them.

Mention what was in the dish, and they immediately get a violent stomach-ache.

the There are

Cleanliness Hypos. These people have a morbid horror of touching cloorknobs or breathing the same air as other people. They spend most of the day washing.

They are terrified of clothes they have not laundered them- like to go around selves, and the house wearing gloves.

There are-the Acidity Hypos. These types imagine that every- thing they eat, turns into cry- stals inside their bodies, and worry themselves into rheuma- tim or fibrosilis.

Many of them are tectotaler3. Nearly all of them are worried by the world or by their jobs. They all get furious when their doctors explain that it is prob- of mind, and 1 ably a state

mental therapy would little

cure,

Odd Thing

I

Sonia

slips

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"The Yard sleuth knew i had

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HAD tracked down Sonia to her latest hide-out, the back room of a Chinese cabman's shelter outside Limehouse Tube Station.

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found London's notorious Crime Queen fishing a bowl of pigtail coup, and wearing

evering Back gowniess

24

of Re: For it is no odd thing that mandarin blue with fiskirtless hypochondriats do not slit, stockingless ladders, and They like foes with no shoes. with their imaginary

had a rash, all right, though we many couldn't discover why it started want to be cured. and why it went. Mrs Bell living docsivt show any sign. at all, ills.

LEONARD MOSLEY patients which includes she just feels bud."

fcared he was in for a grisly death from leprosy.

Napoleon lived a lifetime with a fictitious stomach- ache.

uveryone from professional men to factory workers and farm labourers.

Her Pre-occupations`

give

under-

cup of

Sonia was very animated. Hier Planting eyes glitteres 38 sho

about her Unfortunately, though most reminisced doctors understand and have world carec, Now the morbid fear of

a certain sympathy for hypo- "Then, she laughed, reck- disease has started laying

chondria, there is not the timelessly gulping off a to do much about it nowadays. Chinese cabman's coffee hez its damp hands on ordinary

"Let's take the case of a Mrs Bell is the wife of a

landlady, Ma Jong. had just doctors could Once, people. Ask any doctor how

call Jim business man who works in the many of his regular patients patient we'll

sensational robbery of all. suffer from "fake" illness Smith," he said, "You know City. She is 38 and still very these fancied pains some high-brought in, "there was my mot

and charge E pretty. She dressed. well, and sounding name At a party in the Chan- and he will probably answer Jim. He's the foreman at when she tries she can be as high fee for a harmless oplate. made the hypochondrine cellery in Berlin in 1987 I that a fifth to a sixth of his the local cement works and charming as a pet antelope. But This

feel Important, and happler, ones looked in Hitler's bath-list--are feeling proper he looks as strong as a bull, not lately.

But now there is room cabinet; it contained poorly" when they do not

willingness or the opportunity six kinds of smelling salts, need to.

to waste precious working 42 different boxes of drugs,

Now, that means that

hours 16 stomach powders, four

hypochondrines eyewashes, and seven car thousands are either feeling syringes, and there were ill when there is nothing the three tame doctors per matter with them, or have manently on the premises. worried themselves unneces-

He is as strong as a bull. too, but nowadaya he gets insulted if you tell him so."

About two years ago if all began. Until that time Jim played cricket for his local team, was the proud

Today the strange story is

Nowadays her two main pre- occupations in life are the pains she feels at night which, she says, prevent her from sleeping, and the fear that she is losing her sight.

can

it. on

le not the

that So

most

"I vamped Dennis Cort, néphéw of Senor Cort, the Mexican mi lionaire manufacturer of a com- (binni fronter-and-dacket-pres3."

The plot.

Forehand-drive, Wimbledon.

today do notENNIS lived with his uncle at even get their ration of sym- puthy. They just get the pains and the rushes and rush to the

When asked about it, she

never quite define her medicine cabinet

told of

BRITAIN'S STATE SEER

L

OUIS DE WOHL'S was perhaps the strangest appointment

of the war. He was Brit- tain's seer: the State as- trologer.

An

It was

appointment too bizarre, too improbable, for the War Office to pro- claim and publicise. But there he was, Captain Louls de Wohl, casting his horo-- scopes in a fifth-floor office at Grosvenor House. Now,

DE WOHL

☆ A prophet in Mayfair

relates how he fought Hitler by 'star warfare'

by

GEORGE HUTCHINSON

The house was stift with valu- able stuff, and Sonia soon had Dennis "who was utterly under my spell," agreeing to help her make a fat haul.

when

picked an afternoon all the servants were out. Uncle would be hay- ing his nap. We pretended Wo were playing tennis.

by ERNEST DUDLEY

The Armchair Detective

"Very little later" De Wohl Alamelni. "A high ranking the house,

Wo

"At the right moment nippet back to

I had a plain van asked him to consider walling outside. Dennis stunned was introduced to the heads of officer"

both without his uncle with a powerful back- Service departments. That two birth-data, autumn be

birth-hander. established in the birth-hour and the wba

The officer was brief: his "Psychological Research place." Bureau," unpaid at first, and Which of these two is likely to beat the other?" The details, it for six months un-uniformed,

He was a copious prophet. In transpired, were those of Rommel Ave years De Wahl wrote hun- end Montgomery. dreds of reports. He provided the officers, horoscopas of senior Allied and encry; he divined the "asports" of politicians, kings and nations.

"We were interrupted." Sonia continued, "by a sudden ring at the front door. Dennis nearly panicked, but i answered the door, and it was only the post- enar. Atter that we went ahead filing the van, and finally I drove De Wahl was confident: Mont-off with it. I had the stuff and gomery (born November 17.1887) got back, then Dennis phoned was favoured. Montgomery, he the cops."

"The old maid' ·

in his is that she has got. Shething] bery,"

When would Hitler Invade the told the officer, "has Mars in British Islest In late 1940 De Virgo. The virginthe accurate "A camy Scottish sleuth-from Wohl was asked to report again methodical spinster, the old maid Scotland Yard, Inspector Harris undi again." Who asked him? who is zo tidy that it hurts. She Tweedy, investigated the rob- De Wohl prints no names. He re- knows exactly where from

one ported: of 1940 De myself passed on

"No astrologer in a book, "The Stars of

won't By the summer

series could possibly encourage

Is travel before everything War and Peace," De Wohl Wohi had convinced himself that celebrity to the other."

"astrological warfare Dgainst

Alba Hitler do start on such a hunt realy down to the last button. In August the Duke of explains himself.

Hitler was a necessity." How asked De Wohl to dinner at the risky venture under his present

Spanish Fimbassy. Fellow guests bad aspects." There would be no Super-impose In two rooms of the hotel could he convince the British?

before nature of a a courageous soldier He spoke to tho sympathetic included the Foreign Secretary, invation, he predicted, he ato, slept and applied Rumanian Minister V. V. Tilen Lord Halifax, his wife, the late May 1941 (when Jupiter would and you get a man who

Marquers of Londonderry, and

That

The story,

himself to the war. An 88-' mow a farmer in Oxfordshire Lady Londonderry. De Wohle. In conjunction with the post- not attack before he feels ces the letters off the mat, he went

hotel bill

"I found that a curious ar

tion of Neptune birth).

The sea

battle

At

bonus and everyone

on the YOUNG Cort pretended, on dier Sonia's instructions, that will they had just conre back from tennis, "While I was picking up Hitler's tain he will win. He will take

ritics certainly-bit only when to find his uncle.. sistant, labelled liaison off- "Never mind what the British

afford Cape he knows that he can of

"To his horror, there he was cer, delivered his pay in Selieve," argued De Wohl. "What describes the party:

them. Therefore, given armies cash. The nation paid the matter that Himab the same zangement had been madden Malayan was acologically, it of about equal size and equal

is Hitler believes in Matapon Andrew Cunning

umconscious everything valu-

..... It with not too many enlculations as Ilitler's astrologer.

was a cast-iron story," Sonia In the War Office there is r shall know what Hitler is ad arranged for Lord Halifax. A was apparently De Wohl's. The quality,

row of other chairs formed a Impending powerful aspect of handicaps as far as equipment said. "Inspector Tweedy wouldn't

My have had a clue. today no record of De Wohl. vised by a man in whom he be semi-circle round It-except for Admiral Cunningham had im and position is concerned, He was commissioned in advantage to the British."

Heves. And that should be of one chal, just in frant of that of pressed him, he recalls, as early money would be on November

"Only, you seo... "and Sonia Lord Halifax. The Duice of Alba a November 20, 1940, when "1.17." different and English ---N

Indicated that I should sit down wrote my raport, and mentioned That was the war of Captain started robbing into her coffee. name. At the hotel, how- Earl, duke there and tell Lord Halifax that the admiral was most likely de Wohl. He had no rivals, no "I'd been and gone and made. about Hitler's horoscope."" to achieve a great success be competitors. His counter-parts another of my silly allos That ever, and to his own asso-

De Wohl spoke from memory twoen March 27 and April 5.**

In Germany: alk were was why they pinched Dennis clates, he was Captain de

Hiller's astrologers, 30 were and only got away just in tiine. Wohl.

for the better part of an hour. Monty's chance

Didn't have a second to change "I shall get you the connections From time to time Lord Halifax De Wohl, son of a cavalry you need.”

vocation Hitler's out of my own (and lace) tennis asked questions and I could not It was March 27, 1941, when Goering's. For then it was

dangerous

shorts. officer in the Royal Hun-

"He was as good as his word" de admiring the quidfinès with Mussolini's shijis safod area we. Karl E.. Kraff, a Swiss, died at}

which he editel art snel up nighted by our hiremit. Next day Buchenwald.

But you have moired Sonia's garian Army, had arrived in writes De Wohl. "A few days the main facts of a complicated the battle was fought, with Cun- Britain from Barlin in 1985. Istot I had to explain my theory theory that had so far, Dean oil punghafts- mundus slight pftack. Was Prime Minister Churchill milafate at once. You haven's By profession he wad-and before a small council of very tirely alles to Him; hage zid Tini daims De Woll was to Do Wohl's "astrological A look at the picture again must

Wohl.” “E am not at all suo leta, novelist, but he has inueniat men, including the idea whether he had anything to Mitopditore esiculated 127 Warlate 11 neked Mr Do give you the clue

Iata Lord Horne and Earl Wine do with later developments. At days, in advance.. studiod astrology for 20 torton, MP. This meeting broke least be of them are probably fe clakaty do that he pre- about that the rolled, "I havd. Still in doubt?. Turn to Füge vents.

dicted Montgomery's victory at never quired?? the Ice and I suddenly found due to Lord ffome..

Tilea called it "an appeal to

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