RHEUMATISM -‐ PAIN WITH A REASON
BY ALEC MILNE
Rheumatism is no more incurable than the person who has it. Consider well this report:
“Although on looking back I can see that my health was deteriorating in my late teens, it was not until the age of 26 that rheumatoid arthritis developed in earnest. Several things had probably led up to this, both physical and mental.
During my late teens I had long stretches of night duty during air raids and became very tired, having a series of minor illnesses that were treated in the usual (I would now realise, wrong) way. I also remember being ravenous, and filling up on white bread and tea -‐ certainly the food was very poor by Kingston
standards, always cooked and mostly starch! I had had a very sheltered and secure childhood, growing up the only girl in a family of good-‐natured and happy parents and brothers. At the age of twenty I married and later went abroad, finding my new family, while affectionate and intelligent, extremely temperamental. This was something quite new in my experience, and I was quite unable to adjust to it. Being the type to run a mile rather than have a scene I spent long periods tensed up waiting for the next explosion.