1137

In England Now

A Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents

IT is possible to render a cat neurotic in the following way,First of all you teach it that food may be found under a certainlid. Then you teach it to step on a lever A to put the food there,Then you teach it that stepping on lever A only has this effectafter a buzzer has sounded. Then you teach it to step on

another lever B which causes the buzzer to sound. At this

point the hungry cat, when put into the cage, goes to lever B,starts the buzzer, treads on lever A, sees the food travel alonga moving belt to the box, and finally lifts the lid and takesthe food. The mental state of the animal at this stage of itstraining might fairly be compared with that of a membershipcandidate, his brain the precarious repository of an elaborate,arbitrary structure of yeas and nays, do’s and don’ts, almostamounting to the behavioural equivalent of a Calder mobile.To return to the cat, it is instructive to watch the zest with

which the experimenter next rigs up a cylinder of compressedair in such a way that, as often as not, but in no predictablesequence, the cat receives a violent air-blast in the face as itreaches triumphantly down into the box. After several of theserebuffs, the wretched animal grows disgusted with a world inwhich it receives only a silent Bronx cheer at the very momentwhen it expects, if anything, a spot of applause; it becomesapathetic, uncertain, withdrawn. It flinches at the sight of amouse and has no heart for small talk with the fellers when itreturns to the sane and levelheaded world of cats. It is, as youmight say, a cool and far-out catnik. Several times a year onecan see a silent, tight-lipped cortege of humans leaving QueenSquare in this condition.And now, the moral. The cat knows when it is beaten;

whereas before it unerringly selected milk, now it totters onshaking paws to the dish of alcohol. But what of its human

counterparts ? These do not, let it be said, all take to drink;but with the regularity and persistence of the very seasons theyreturn, time after time, to go through the same ritual andreceive sooner or later the ineluctable blasting. This may not

altogether go to show, as Clovis once put it, the superiorwisdom of the cat tribe; but it makes you think, all the same.

* * *

It looks as though the West Country has lost its floods for thetime being at any rate, though when the snow comes to the moorswhat will happen to the valleys is anyone’s guess. But sufficientunto the day-down here we are busy scrubbing up forChristmas. The ground-floor rooms in those thousand floodedhouses look much alike. Bare boards (for who would risk newlino or treasured carpet on still damp floors-a few rugs haveto suffice), paper peeling from dripping walls, doors that willnot shut, coldness and dampness everywhere. But the furniture,what there is left of it, is polished to perfection and the brassdoor-step is brighter than ever, and above all there are countlessfires.What of the inhabitants ? There are some bruised shins and

sprained ankles, the result of stepping into holes in the boards,a few colds, and fewer grumbles. What really does hurt iswhen other towns claim to have had bigger and better floodsthan ours. It just isn’t fair! Anyhow we were one of the firston the news. Our houses were on the telly and we could evenrecognise our friends on the screen. We may salute Christmaswith bare boards, bare walls, bare cupboards even, but saluteit we will, and if the floods come again we will know how todeal with them and won’t lose our carpets and lino the secondtime.

* * *

It had been a long unsatisfactory case, with an inevitableconclusion. The old man, on steroids for his chest, had failedto respond to medical treatment for his bleeding gastric ulcer.Postoperatively his abdomen had dehisced twice, and he hadhad a deep-vein thrombosis. His electrolytes had gone haywire,his serum-proteins had dropped, and he had become a pool ofoedema. Then, finally, he had begun to bleed again.

The necropsy plodded on, nobody really learning very much.The physicians looked for a surgical " cause of death "; thesurgeons were quite sure none of it would have happened if...So when the pathologist pulled a calcareous 5. cm. x 2-5 cm.solitaire out of the gallbladder and placed it with a bang on thetable, everybody applauded the anaesthetist’s soft comment:

" Well, there is something concrete, anyway."* * *

In my first house-job at the Z Royal Infirmary, I becameconvinced that the inhabitants of Z-shire had a bowel fixation.Whatever their complaint, from congestive cardiac failure todisseminated sclerosis, the patient’s chief anxiety was centredon the presence or absence of constipation. Other symptomsand states might be unpleasant or inconvenient; only bowelswere dangerous. The Medical Registrar, who had workedamong the Zians much longer than I had, maintained that ifyou asked a Zian how his chest was, he would say " all right ";if you asked him how his stomach was, he would say " allright "; but if you asked him how his bowels were, he wouldsay " all right, thank you

* * *

It was a mild sunny Sunday morning, and the bustlinganimated crowd at Sandown Park might have been out for acarefree day at the races. But there were an unusual number ofspectators in uniform-nurses, Civil Defence, ambulance, RedCross, scouts, guides, and police. There were signs of strangemishaps, too, in the incongruously cheery casualties whostrolled around, swathed in gory bandages, their faces ashen-grey with makeup and powder. In fact it was the Casualties’Union annual competition.

I had rashly offered to lend a hand supervising the NationalBlood Transfusion Service demonstration. My team was soexpert that my own colour soon improved. A rubicund." donor " and a pallid casualty " were laid out side by sideon stretchers. " Blood " from drip-feed bottles ran to cannulasin the antecubital fossa, artfully camouflaged with flesh-coloured plasticine. The inflow to the donor and the outflowfrom the casualty were concealed beneath the blankets. How-ever, we all actually drank copious draughts of hot sweet tea,whenever the clot of spectators thinned.The main event was the competition in which 24 ambulance

teams from Service, police, Civil Defence, London Transport,and first-aid organisations had to diagnose three set casualties,render emergency first-aid, and get them into the ambulancewithin ten minutes. The " casualties " were strewn on thesteps of the grandstand, acting the role of cleaners who hadsustained injury while clearing up after the race-goers. It wasinteresting to watch how the teams went about it. I particu-larly relish the memory of a sweating policeman solemnlywarning a casualty with a fractured tibia, " Now, you just staywhere you are !"

* * *

The essential foreignness of a foreign country is never sostrongly felt as in its hotels-the weird noises at odd hours,the cigar smells, the mysterious slept-in beds which appearovernight in the corridor, the pocket-filling keys attached togreat bronze shields. But the things that really make me feelhomesick and ill at ease are the notices. Sometimesthis is because I cannot read them at all. "

XPTHNTH TNYKRPTHNTHCXH’" declared an authoritative-looking plaquein an Athenian lavatory (Zeus! I remember wondering for asickening moment-was I sitting in the right half of thatbicameral establishment ?) But usually it is their sheer

threateningness that disconcerts me. " 1. THE DIRECTIONDON’T ANSWER FOR VALUES AND PRECIOUX THINGS, LEAVED

UNGARDED IN THE ROOMS," growled a huge board in my Romehotel. Aghast, I carefully locked my pitiful possessions in thewardrobe and pocketed another 4 in. key before going downto dinner. Next day, when the key jammed in the door, Istruggled with it in a state of mad, unreasoning panic, fearfullest I be delayed and get involved in some terrible, foreignlegal proceedings. For the next notice ran. " 2. ROOMS DON’TDISAFFIRMED WITHIN 14 O’CLOCK ARE CONSIDERED CONFIRMEDFOR THE NEXT DAY."