CURIOUS PATIENTS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10313, 24 January 1927, Page 8

CURIOUS PATIENTS

- IN A PEKING HOSPITAL

REMARKABLE REASONING

At the instance of an enterprising germ X have retired to bed lor the last few weeks (writes the Peking correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian”). Nothing in China is quite like anything anywhere else, and this applies even to hospitals. At home a hospital is a cool, quiet, rather melancholy building with a vague atmosphere of iodoform and groups of nurses pushing little trollies containing silent and bandaged figures. All of these qualities would be intensely .distasteful to the Chinese. He hates quiet; he dislikes the smell of any sort of foreign drug, and he lias a genuine terror of operations. A Chinese wishing to go to a foreign hospital has to call a council of war of his family. Let us suppose that he has appendicitis. When the agonies in his side have satisfied him that, ho is really ill, and when decoctions of rhinoceros horn, bats’ eyelids, and the dung of the deathmoth have been brewed for him in vain, he feels, that he must face the worse and go into a foreign hospital. He calls a family council. All the old ladies, each of whom tries for the world’s non-stop talking record, are against it. Their objections may be summarised as follows: (1) The ancients did not go into foreign hospitals ; (2) their own husbands, who probably retired to the cemetery between 1860 and TB9O, did not go into foreign hospitals; (3) foreign doctors have a notorious passion for operations, and nothing can be more undignified and unbecoming than to appear in the next world with one’s body a mass of scars; and (4) because it is an established fact that most of the operations performed in a foreign hospital are only* done in order to enable tlm doctor to abstract small portions of one’s inside, such as an odd kidney, or stray pancreas, with a view to the making of medicines. The wives and concubines are all in favor of waiting another day. The majority of the brothers, cou.sius, partners in business, chauffeurs, servants who happen to be passing through the room, sewing amahs, and stray persons who have drifted in attracted by the noise, usually adopt a modern attitude and say that foreign doctors have undoubtedly saved many lives and are economical. In the ordinary run of things the debate lasts about a fortnight, 'during which time the appendix e.'ther hursts and kills the patient or the attack passes olf and the patient gets well without any solution of the problem having been reach :d.

But periodically something happens which has to be met with an immediate decision. Next door to me this afternoon there lies a middleaged gentleman of sound financial position'Vho was unfortunately attacked by., ch ’i at a moment When a bottle of corrosive sublimate was at 1 hand. When a Chinese is attacked by cli’i, which may be defined as a irust of hysterica! temper, it is qprudent to remove all means of sed-in-jurv. This was not done, and tne poor -gentleman swallowed half the bottle at one gulp. The result was aopaliing, hut even in spite oi tne agonies of pain he was suffering the family council took three days before they decided that he must l> a into hospital. It is extremely unlikely that lie will leave the hosp.tnl alive When, however, a Chinese does at last make up his mind to enter hospital. t’ie procession looks more like the departure of the Israelites tioni jr.gypC than a sick manbtfing taken from Ins home. Ihe wninese aic excessively gregarious to begin with, and the gregarious quality in a man is usually heightened by sickness or misfortune. Now if there be a quality that the Chinese possesses m a greater degree than gregariousness it is curiosity, and the entire household are quietly determined that they shall miss nothing of it hat is going forward, and especially the chance of seeing the inside of a foreign hospital. The sick paterfamilias arrives, therefore, accompanied by all his aged female relatives, whose right is absolutely bevond cavil and cannot be questioned.' Then conic a few brothers and uncles, but the mam phalis mad* up of his wives and concubines and their friends and children. The procession is commonly brought up by a nurse leading a child of tender years in one hand and having a baby of about one year at breast”, behind whom came? a small female child of about 11 carrying a pale pink camel basin covered with netting, inside which repose two pairs or the sick mail’s shoes, an aged spittoon, and paper cigarette-boxes filled with miscellaneous articles. The whole of this party cannot get into the consulting-room; indeed, the doctor does not want them to, and has a special staff whose duty is to break up the crowd and prevent it from worrying the doctor. Y\ hen the diagnosis is made, a discussion is held as to whether the doctor shall be jriven a free hand or not. If an operation is recommended it is usual to demand from the doctor a written paper guaranteeing success. . with a view to making a claim in the event of failure. This paper is -always refused. for obvious reasons. Chinese reasoning is entirely different from Western reasoning, as the following cases will show. Some three weeks ago my doctor Was summoned to see a man who was said to lie suffering from fever. It was July, and the thermometer stood at over lOOdeg. F. When he arrived the patient was unconscious, and to the amazement of the doctor his temperature was higher than the thermometer would record. On throwing back the bedclothes the doctor found that the sick man had on— Three pairs of wool stockings, One silk coat lined with marten, One silk coat lihed with fox, One overcoat lined with sheepskn. One overcoat lined with sheepskin, month of the year, the wretched man was so clad, the wife replied that it was necessary, because just' before her husband lose consciousness he had complained of feeling chilly He died from heat apoplexy, without recovering consciousness. The next gentleman had typhoid. He was much relieved to hear that no operation was proposed, and said cheerfully: ‘All the cook’s fault; X told them how it would be at home. You pee some days ago the hot element was predominant in my body. X realised at once that great care was necessary, for the conjunction of omens was unfavorable, and I decided on chicken broth as not likely to aggravate the unfavorable elements in the situation. After drinking it I felt uneasy, and you may not believe me, but ,T am telling you the simple truth when I say that broth had been made from female chickens. 1 well knew that X should be ill, and instantly• decided to place myself in your justly famed hands.”