468 DISCUSSION 



own views on international affairs rather than the contribution of a doctor 

 towards the treatment of a disease. But I wanted to emphasise my opinion 

 that remedies that depend upon parading or dragooning patients in the mass 

 are spurious remedies, and are therefore unlikely to be finally effective in 

 freeing the world from the strain that it is suffering. 



Recently we have been witnessing the invasion of Medicine by mass 

 methods, by direct action, by force. The results have been very disappoint- 

 ing. Too often we have had to admit that many of these therapeutic efforts 

 did little more than demonstrate the triumph of technique over reason. 

 We had to start all over again, working out the particular case, and following 

 the indications carefully. That is, we did this if the direct action method 

 still left us a patient to treat. 



We remembered — what we never should have forgotten — that it is only 

 by this segregation and study of the individual, and attention to his particular 

 needs, that we have any good chance of restoring him to health. It is for 

 this reason that I have dealt with mass movements as efforts towards 

 restoring that sense of security which is essential to national and to inter- 

 national well-being. The analogy from medicine is all against treating the 

 crowd and all in favour of treating the individual. 



But it may be advanced that what may not succeed in Great Britain may 

 succeed in Russia or in Germany. On this it behoves us to hold an open 

 mind. But it also behoves us to be vigilant lest we sell the birthright of 

 our national characteristic, which is individual freedom and poise, for one 

 or other of the vaunted panaceas that are offered us from outside. I say 

 all this at the risk of being charged with egregiousness — a common charge 

 against Britons. 



There is another characteristic in the British patient : to treat him success- 

 fully he must be treated through his intelligence and through his will, not 

 through his emotions. He responds badly to the ' ca passe ' method. 



Nor shall we, if we be wise, listen seriously to the various panaceas offered 

 to us from within. There are several of these. In respect of the worrying 

 menace of war and the perpetual anxiety it creates, there is the doctor who 

 says : ' Sign a post-card against war, say you won't have war.' Which 

 sounds reminiscent of that old story, attributed to President Coolidge, who 

 laconically summed up the preacher's sermon on sin by the statement, ' He 

 was against it.' Or as who should say, ' I don't hold with cancer.' But 

 who does ? This sort of thing does not help anybody. Whereas the senti- 

 ment implicit in the question, ' Who stands if Freedom fall ? Who dies 

 if England live ? ' does help, nor is the man or woman who is braced 

 by such sentiment necessarily a jingo or a blatant patriot. Ideals are 

 essential for us all, and are invaluable tonics, but the British patient does 

 better on a practical and an attainable ideal than on one which is, in this 

 present world, too visionary. ' The test of truth in matters of practice is 

 to be found in the facts of life, for it is in them that the supreme authority 

 resides.' 



Then, just as we get the hypochondriac in matters of the body and of 

 the mind, so there is in some quarters, or so it seems to me, a tendency to 

 spiritual hypochondriasis. There are folk who, to use Carlyle's significant 

 simile, spend much of their time looking at their own navels, and even 

 comparing them with those of their friends : much too subjective an 

 occupation to be healthy. We break up the hypochondriac situation by 

 exhorting the patient to be more objective in his outlook and to leave his 

 body alone. His body troubles him less when once he effects this orienta- 

 tion. If for ' body ' we read ' soul ' the same result may be safely pre- 

 dicted from the same treatment. Following a medical thought I regard 



