This convention inevitably influences the “straightener’s” attitude towards his patients, as we are told by the traveller in a description of an interview between his host and an Erewhonian doctor:— “I was struck with the delicacy with which he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the physical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness about my host’s eyes which argued a bilious habit of body. To have taken notice of this would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette. I was told, however, that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to glance at the possibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it important in order to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which he gets are generally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions upon the matter as well as he can. Sensible men have been known to say that the straightener should in strict confidence be told of every physical ailment that is likely to bear upon the case, but people are naturally shy of doing this, for they do not like lowering themselves in the opinion of the straightener, and his ignorance of medical science is supreme. I heard of one lady, indeed, who had the hardihood to confess that a furious outbreak of ill-humour and extravagant fancies for which she was seeking advice was possibly the result of indisposition. ‘You should resist that,’ said the straightener, in a kind, yet grave voice, ‘we can do nothing for the bodies of our patients; such matters are beyond our province, and I desire that I may hear no further particulars.’ The lady burst into tears and promised faithfully that she would never be unwell again.” FOOTNOTES: [50] Hart, _op. cit._, p. 7. [51] _Cf._ Dr. Bedford Pierce’s statement, (_op. cit._, p. 43), “I have met persons otherwise level-headed who cannot be persuaded to enter the grounds of an asylum. Not infrequently all sorts of excuses are made to escape the duty of visiting a relative who is under care, and so real is the danger of neglect that the State has decreed that no order for reception shall be granted without an undertaking that the patient shall be visited at least every six months.” [52] p. 5. The italics are ours. [53] pp. 77 and 78. [54] We have in mind throughout the discussion, not the richer members of the community, for whom a relatively expensive holiday or period spent in the nursing home is easily possible, but the great majority of the public, to whom even the ordinary doctor’s bill may be a source of financial embarrassment for months or years. [55] R. G. Rows, _Journal of Mental Science_, January, 1912. [56] pp. 77 and 78. [57] _Analytic Psychology_, London, 1916, p. 318.