Take It Easy

King Solomon, who wrote songs about a love so strong that it made his stomach ache, was well aware that a man's emotions can make him sick. Not all of Solomon's wisdom has been forgotten. Last week, at the American College of Physicians' annual meeting in Chicago, 3,500 U.S. doctors heard, among other reports, some specific examples of how sick a man can be if he gets too wrought up over things.

Violent and prolonged anger can play havoc with body tissues, said Dr. Harold G. Wolff of Cornell Medical College. A furious man -- or even a peevish one who constantly takes umbrage -- gets too much blood in his stomach walls; if he stays angry too long, ulcers may result. The fury or sulking fits aroused by threats to a man's life or his love, said Dr. Wolff, sometimes affects his nose: it may swell up and hurt. A "mad" nose, caught with its resistance down, is easy prey to colds and other infections.

Drs. Walter Freeman and James Watts of George Washington University, pioneers in psychosurgery, told of having performed prefrontal lobotomy -- a brain operation which frees the patient from feelings of anxiety and fear -- on patients who were suffering unbearable pain from chronic disease (TIME, Dec. 23). The operation had no effect on the disease, and did nothing to lessen the pain; but the patients, freed of anxiety, now found their suffering bearable, and some even laughed at it. The doctors' conclusion: "When pain no longer raises a mental picture of future disability, it can be borne with equanimity."

Probably the most dubious statement of the week, to laymen's ears, came from the University of Illinois' famed Dr. Andrew C. Ivy. Most of the pain people feel during dental drilling, said he, is no doubt only psychic.

Anxiety dreams caused by emotional frustrations sometimes scare people to death, said Dr. Sylvan H. Robertson of Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital. In such dreams, the heart and blood vessels "become surcharged and remain in a state of tension." Possible result: a heart attack while sleeping.

Philadelphia's Dr. Edward L. Bortz, president-elect of the A.M.A., had a prescription ready for the whole nation: take it easy, get enough sleep and recreation, develop a sense of humor. That way, he thought, the insatiable spirit can be kept from tearing the fragile flesh to pieces. Chicago Heart Specialist Louis N. Katz, who thinks even card games are too strenuous, went further: "Never try competition--not even with your own golf par."

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