Malingerer's Guide

"Better be a coward five minutes than a dead man all your life," runs the old song, Slattery's Mounted Foot. "Better a few weeks ill than all your life dead," runs the heading of a German propaganda leaflet recently dropped on British soldiers in Italy. The text, as reprinted in the British Lancet, tells how to get out of fighting by faking illness.

In general, the pamphlet advises, a man must: 1) act as if he hated to be ill, 2) stick to one set of symptoms, 3) "Don't tell the doctor too much!" Recipes for twelve diseases follow. Samples: P: "Artificial skin inflammation, . . . Take three times daily . . . one teaspoonful of a 10% solution of iodine potassium in a glass of water . . . until a scarlet-like affection of the skin results. . . . Iodine potassium is a completely harmless medicine. . . .

P: "Stomach ulcer. For a number of months you have been suffering of gnawing and burning pains . . . especially violent 15 to 30 minutes after meals. Heavy foods . . . fatty meals and greasy foods do not agree with you. . . . The doctor will probably send you to hospital for observation. Very important: ... At the hospital, take a portion of dried blood powder every evening. The blood test in your stools will be positive. P: "Heart disease. Smoke 20 to 30 cigarets a day. But if you normally smoke as much, then you might double that number. . . . Take four [digitalis] tablets daily for one or two weeks. . . . Report to the doctor with the following complaints: You do not feel well and are short of breath after exertions. . . . Occasionally you have attacks of pain in the heart region. . . . There was cold sweat on your forehead during the attack and you had a feeling as though you were going to die. The doctor will probably have an electrocardiogram done, which . . . will show typical signs of a disease calling for ... removal from the strains of front life."

Commented the Lancet: "The authors would be disappointed if they could see how lightly their elaborate propaganda is received."

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