A visit to the international clinic

The sprightly diagnosis of the various ailments which currently afflict the nations cf the world

As 1931 rolls on, one nation after another gives up the pretence that it doesn t need the doctor, and lines up in the financial and political clinics, patiently awaiting alleviation of its organic maladies. The nations are a pretty battered lot, a typical Saturday night crowd, with blackened eyes, broken bones. There are candidates for the psychopathic ward, the alcoholic ward, the accident ward, and the sheepish few who, after being patched up, must take a ride on the patrol wagon to the Night Court at Geneva. Others keep drifting in, for it is a poor neighborhood, and there are a lot of sicknesses, epidemics and the usual plagues which follow in the wake of undernourishment and poverty. They sit, stolidly, or groaning in agony, on benches, while the House Physician makes his rounds and lectures our group of political internes on the diagnosis and treatment of international casualties. . . .

"Well, gentlemen, this evening we have some very interesting cases to consider, very interesting. Before we get around to them, however, let's get rid of the usual run of minor accidents. Here is Cuba, for example. Just a compound fracture of the price of sugar, gentlemen, that's all. All that is needed in his case, gentlemen, is the Chadbourne treatment and a complete rest. These other cases from the South Side need not detain us—inflammation of public finances and weak Constitutions, gentlemen, have exposed Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Panama and Brazil to common revolutionary fever. Nurse, give these fellows recognition and a good night's rest and don't let them out until the danger of an epidemic is passed.

"On the other hand, these next cases are more complicated. Take Ivan of Russia here. His symptoms are rather intricate. Let's see —high fever, probably Scarlet, Five-Years' Itch, the Ogpu gripes, diplomatic delirium. 11m! Claustrophobia, I see, a psychological disorder which takes the painful form of spasms in which the patient imagines that he has been capitalistically encircled. What's that, nurse? Sometimes fancies that he's a Red Bear? Tut! Tut! Industrial spasms and painful economic dumping? Bad, quite bad. This diagnosis, gentlemen, calls for very cautious treatment. I recommend complete amputation of the front page, rest and quarantine, and small intravenous injections of credit. Watch him carefully, nurse, and let me know if his temperature goes any higher, as we may have to operate.

"The next two cases, gentlemen, arc psychological rather than physiological. Here are Marianne of France and Michael of Germany, who really ought to be married hut who haven't been able to decide for a thousand years which shall be the bride and which the groom. Just now, Marianne insists that her little sister, Versaille, should he the maid of honor and Michael can't stand the brat. Their last appearance was in the Police Court where Michael was bound over to keep the peace, since when he suffers from a persecution complex. Well, gentlemen, we'll have to treat them separately, but remember that there's nothing wrong with either of them which could not be remedied by marriage to the other.

"We'll take Marianne first. Hm, gentlemen, not so young as she was once, in fact, at a delicate and dangerous age. She probably looks under her bed every night for the burglar who isn't there. Symptoms? High military blood pressure, chronic changes of Cabinet, agoraphobia, gentlemen, or fear of not having friends and alliances in her old age. Versailles vertigo, suddenly enlarged gold reserve and diplomatic dementia. Treatment? In this case, gentlemen, I should recommend a reduction of some of that excess armament, a Voronoff operation, and—speaking as a family physician—a little less diplomatic petting in parked international documents and a little—well, perhaps she would not scream very loudly if Michael concealed himself under her bed one fine evening.

"Michael, on the other hand, is a much simpler case of political repression. His symptoms I diagnose as Fascist fever, Dawes Plan delirium, Young Plan yearnings, habitual Hitlerism, revisionist rash and political self-pity. A fattening financial diet, reduction of reparations and a purge of his Polish Corridor would soon set Michael on his feet again.

"This next case, likewise, need not detain us long, a typical example of adolescent maladjustment, frequently found in this southern type. Antonio, here, suffers from inflammation of the Mediterranean—Roll your eyes, Antonio!—colonial jaundice, diplomatic malaria, economic growing pains and financial malnutrition, all of which result in a marked inferiority complex—Drop that knife, Tony, drop that knife!—over-compensated, as frequently occurs, by bombastic eruptions on the frontal page. The indicated treatment, gentlemen, is birth control, raw materials, and a few discreet little colonial adventures.

"Here, on the other hand, is a most interesting case. This elderly gentleman, Mr. John Bull, is the greatest land-owner in the world and possesses the strongest Constitution it has ever been my privilege to examine. He is sound as a bell, both financially and physically, yet he is always complaining of poverty, and is always contracting diseases which would kill any ordinary patient. To-day, for example, we can diagnose his symptoms, though God knows they will be entirely different to-morrow. He has industrial diabetes, the doleiul dumps, complicated by chronic unemployment and scanty trade returns. He has got. Asiatic cholera and mandatory sleeping sickness, Palestinian palsy and East African ague, accompanied by acute distress in the region of the Dominions and colic in the Colonies. If you add to this an invincible superiority complex which takes the form of naval paranoia anti debt settlement psychosis, you will appreciate that it is difficult to prescribe. I recommend a little good luck, a little friendly appreciation, a little help from his relatives, and the transfusion of a large quantity of gold. That will buck the old hoy up, so long as you don't pity him or act as though he were a poor relation. In spite of his shabby shoes and mournful expression, gentlemen, he could buy you and me twice over, and he's survived more fatal illnesses than the rest of us will ever have. . . .

JAY FRANKLIN

"God bless my soul! what's all this?"

Clang! clang! clang! Whoooeeeeeeooooo! With hell ringing and siren shrieking, the Ambulance rounds the corner on two wheels, slithers through the gateway and stops with a jerk in front of the emergency ward entrance. Two puffing internes and a perplexed policeman unload a corpulent and loudly groaning man. Placing him tenderly on a stretcher, they rush him to the operating room. The reception interne hastily takes his pedigree from the policeman: "Name 'Sam'. Occupation, 'Uncle'. Found sitting on the curb at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. Refused to move along when ordered to do so by Patrolman Hoover of the Economic Traffic Squad. Created a violent disturbance when a bystander urged him to go home and sleep ofT his Prosperity."

The House Physician, followed by the internes, tiptoes into the operating room. He makes a brief inspection of the patient and, fairly trembling with the dreadful joy of a doctor who has found a wealthy patient with complicated and painful ailments, turns to his class.

"Gentlemen! This is beyond all doubt the most interesting case that has come into this ward since 1914. Here you have a young and apparently healthy man, who, on cursory inspection, shows symptoms of the following disorders. Listen attentively, gentlemen,—and will some one kindly send for the photographer? I want this case exhibited in the 'Medical Journal'. The patient has softening of the Executive Department, cirrhosis of the Senate, and hardening of the political arteries, combined with hypertrophy of the head, elephantiasis of the Prohibition Unit, and fatty degeneration of the pocket-book. I find, moreover, symptoms of congestion of the inventories, cramps in the Corn Belt, low employment pressure, and pains in the banking system. Finally, the patient shows certain distressing reflex symptoms, such as hallucinations on the Stock Market, swelling of the bread lines, moral flatulence, diplomatic isolation, and the most fully developed Narcissus complex I have ever observed!

"In this case, gentlemen, I shall depart from my usual custom and, after 1 have made my own suggestions for a course of treatment, 1 shall invite you to state your own views. 1 recommend a low moral diet, plenty of light wines and beer, a dose of political strychnine to improve the heart action, drastic reduction of the gold reserve, hard and regularly paid work at Union wages, a little social and diplomatic promiscuity, lancing of the higher brackets, massage of the masses, and a complete change of environment."

The internes hurst into loud and contradictory opinions, climbing over one another to examine the patient and shouting to the House Physician.

"1 object," Doctors Wilson and Cannon shout simultaneously. "Alcohol would kill the patient. What he needs is to practice self-control in a nice, padded cell."

"You're all wet," Drs. Smith and Ritchie contradict. "Give him plenty to drink and don't bother the poor fellow. If he can't get self-control at home, he'll never learn it in a padded cell."

"Give him companionate marriage!" shouts Dr. Lindsey.

"Contrariwise!" shouts Dr. Manning.

"I don't agree with anybody," exclaims Dr. Hamilton Fish, though nobody pays any attention to him. "What he needs is complete amputation of his Russian imports, and elimination of radicalism from his system. Unless he is fed a good counter-revolutionary tonic, he's liable to come down with Scarlet Fever."

"If yuh asks me, Doc," interjects Patrolman Hoover, "all dat guy needs is to sleep it off in a nice clean cell and spin his spiel to de judge in de morning."

"What?" cried Drs. Caraway and Robinson. "Can't you see that the poor fellow is undernourished. What he needs is frequent injections of public funds into doubtful electoral districts.

"Not at all," insists Drs. Norris, Pinchot and Roosevelt. "We ought to operate at once and remove the Power Trust before political peritonitis sets in."

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"If you want my opinion," purrs Dr. Butler, "all he needs is to join a good lodge, like the League of Nations, take the pledge, pay his dues and stick to it."

"Never," yells Dr. Borah, "that would finish him."

"What does lie need, then?" Dr. Butler demands.

"Me!" replies Dr. Borah.

The class of internes breaks up into angry little groups, arguing and swearing at each other. Some start to operate, hut the Democrats want to remove his Administration and the Republicans want to remove his public debt.

"Where am 1?" lie murmurs faintly.

"In the middle of 1931," the nurse assures him. "There, there! Aoull feel better in a little while."

lie looks at the doctors. "What are those doctors going to do with me?" he asks. "God, I'm thirsty."

"They think they'd better operate, hut the doctor says that you mustn't drink anything for another ten years until they see whether it agrees with your Constitution."

The patient looks indignant. "Ten years hell!" lie mutters darkly. "Wake me up in November 1932 and I'll show you that I can take mine straight and without a chaser. And besides," he adds, "they can't operate now, because I can't pay them."

He turns on his side and relapses into deep slumber.

The House Physician rubs his hands. "There you are, gentlemen," he tells his class. "Vis curatrix naturae. The best course of treatment in this case is to leave the patient alone. When he's slept it off, he'll he able to take care of himself and we can take the credit for curing him."

"That's rotten medical ethics," complains a raucous and unidentified interne from the rear of the room.

"Perhaps," purrs the House Physician, "but it's damn good politics."