The Layman Considers His Health

By T. F. FOX

THE motor-car simile is inescapable ; so let us face it at once. Everyone agrees that the driver of a car should know a little about the machinery and should have it regularly overhauled.

Surely we ought to do as much for our bodies ? They have to last our whole life.

But there is one big difference between a machine and a human being : the machine is not " suggestible." If our motor-cars were liable to lose confidence on over-hearing doubts about their piston-rings ; if the engine went into a cold sweat whenever we lifted the bonnet ; if the steering- wheel shied each time we commented on that curious creaking sound--why then, and only then, the comparison would be a fair one. For the man who starts contemplating his internal organs will . often begin losing ,power on hills or missing on one cylinder. Observing which, Plato remarked that attention to health is the greatest hindrance to life.

And the same thought is often expressed by physicians today. Dr. Harry Roberts sees a different side of the truth. He thinks we can no longer afford to• live by instinct : artificial surroundings demand conscious thought and this must be fed on accurate knowledge. In setting out to provide this knowledge* he puts before us a very high standard. It has been wittily said that the way of health should be considered not so much a tight-rope as a broad and well paved road whereon only a fool can err. Dr. Roberts, however, would not be satisfied with slightly inebriated progress from one pathological kerb to the other. He sees health as something positive and active :

" The truly healthy man is courageous, not one in hiding, even though his skin be still intact. He looks hopefully forward, not timorously behind him ; he is resilient, not static ; he is enthusiastic, not merely enduring ; his body and mind are one, collaborators in an enterprise pleasurably exciting."

The aim of his book then is to put us in the way of such

splendid living, and for groundwork we are told much about the natural history or man. In the first 380 pages we may

learn about the heart, the lungs, the stomach and the brain ; about fertilisation and heredity ; about different kinds of food ; about exercise and exercises ; about clothes and their absence ; about the house, the factory and the workshop ; about the management of later life. Here, too, we may study the development and feeding of the child, the problems of sex and marriage, the course and tribulations of child- bearing, the art of parenthood, and (somewhat belatedly perhaps) the technique of birth-control.

The lazy reader will disregard instructions, make no effort to master the vocabulary of anatomy and physiology, and casually explore whatever happens to attract him. And to my mind the lazy reader will be right ; for Within an hour he may very well learn much to his advantage. Some of the essays --on parenthood and on home-nursing for example—are so good that each is enough to justify the whole undertaking. *id scattered throughout the text are occasional passages of introduction full of a mature and generous wisdom.

At the same time Dr. Roberts cannot be said to have kept a tight rein on the utterances of his anonymous collabora-

tors. The same subjects are treated over and over again in slightly different fashion, and there are several stretches in

which the more evangelical members of the profession have conspicuously been allowed their head. The orthodox doctor will find much to infuriate him, for instance, in the vivid section on middle age ; whose author is so eager to destroy Dragon Constipation that he seems none too careful in his

• *Everyman In Health and in Sickness. Edited by Dr. Barry Roberts. (J. M. Dont and Sons. 12e. W.) choice of weapons, or even in his aim. Indeed there is a lot in the book that leaves me in sheepish sympathy with that deplorable figure " the fat, bald prosperous man of fifty, who enjoys life, and demands of medical science only that it shall afford him the means of sinning against the laws of health without suffering."

Ali yes, you say. That is what we have always wanted to know. What are the laws of health ?

They can hardly be summarised in a moment ; but first it is clear, we must be moderate : and to counteract present excess we should probably be eating less,- sleeping less, and exercising a great deal more. Continental breakfasts, light luncheons, and not much afternoon tea—these make sad reading but joyful stomachs ; and there is no harm in fasting (or even feasting) occasionally for variety. Meat is somewhat suspect ; natural foods are infinitely preferable to those that arc refined ; and all must be treated gingerly for fear of alienating their vitamins. Concentrated cane-sugar is a mistake ; we must drink more water (even at meals), wear fewer clothes, and visit our doctor regularly to prevent the worst occurring. By way of encouragement towards physical perfection •we are confronted with those photographs of really healthy bodies which are the book's most obvious—and faintly astonishing —feature. But it is candidly admitted that " the most seem- ingly vigorous man, living what we call a perfectly healthy life, is as likely as the weakliest and most debauched to fall victim to pneumonia, to yellow fever, to malaria, or to cancer," So much for health : and if the task of simultaneously advising all sorts and conditions of men is once more seen to be a hard one, the general tendency of the advice is clearly in the right direction ; and it would do most of us a power of good to take it, even neat. But there is no necessity, I think, to agree that " if a man is to avoid poisoning himself," or to mitigate the process, " one of his principal preoccupations should be the nature of his intake (air and food). And not approving such preoccupations I personally find something to regret in the fourth part of the volume, where a couple of hundred pages are largely devoted to disease. This section meets an undoubted demand ; it contains some able writing ; and many of the facts about the commoner disorders will be generally useful. But when I find a contributor hoping that his chapters will enable the reader to take an intelligent interest in diseases of the nervous system I definitely part company with him.

There are many people who have to be knowledgeable in human distresses ; but most of us, it seems to me, should not concern ourselves with the ►manifestations of particular diseases unless unluckily they come our way ; and then they need the personal interpretation of someone who really understands them. The idea of disease, it has been said, is being implanted on the public mind and so realising itaelf ; and I would like Dr. Roberts to have paid more attention to this and other aspects of the contemporary plague of Fear. 1 wish too that he had brought out more strongly not only the influence of anxiety upon health, but also the power of man to do great things with an inefficient and imperfect body.

The fact is that imperfection is a condition of our lives ; and in greater or less degree it is also inevitable in books. But on his side Dr. Roberts has provided, at the lowest estimate, much to be grateful for. And the dangers even of a surfeit of information may not be serious if those indulging in it have sense enough to say with Lord Herbert of Cherbury " I believe I know the best receipts for almost all diseases, but shall leave them to the expert physician,"