Plagued by ill thoughts

SPIKE Milligan’s infamous epitaph was “I told you I was ill”.

Queensland doctors are currently complaining about the large amount of time and resources being wasted with patients who have diagnosed their medical condition based on advice from Dr Google.

As a kid I lived 50 miles from the nearest doctor, so my father bought a large leather- bound volume from a travelling salesman, which I knew as “The Doctor’s Book”.

While I was fascinated by the multi- layered cut- outs of the anatomy of a pregnant woman, my mother painstakingly ( no pun intended) made her way through every medical condition known at that time.

After several weeks of her self- diagnosing a new serious ailment every other day, my father confiscated the said book.

In later life when I explained my liturgics of symptoms to specialists and conceded they were probably psychosomatic, I received mixed reactions.

One, with a wry smile, told me he wouldn’t be game to say that. Another, with some irritation, countered that nearly all the patients he performed bypass surgery on thought their condition was only a manifestation of stress. He seemed somewhat disappointed that after numerous tests I didn’t qualify as a candidate.

The army used to be a breeding ground for so- called malingerers.

Temperatures were altered with swallowing toothpaste and shadows on X- rays produced by consuming aluminium foil, all for a day in the infirmary; something that Klinger in M* A* S* H never thought of.

In European and American literature, the hypochondriac is more an object of satire than sympathy. The 17th century French playwright Moliere ( Jean- Baptiste Poquelin), however, was as critical of doctors as of patients.

The 19th century Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov made palpitations a running gag in The Marriage Proposal.

The hypochondriac was a reoccurring character in the English Regency novels of Jane Austen and the American Gothic ones of Edgar Allan Poe.

One good thing which can be said of our Townsville Hospital is that it takes any symptom remotely resembling a heart attack very seriously. WILLIAM ROSS,

Cranbrook.