Dawson of Cawnpore quotes the answer of a woman
when asked the age of her child : "He was born after
his uncle went to Bombay," and on being further
pressed she added, " It was when flour was dear in the
bazaar ". Passing from the age to the " history of the
present illness " the patient or interpreter may hasten
to give symptoms which they think are suitable to the
case. " Are you sure he has such and such a symp-
tom ? " asks the white doctor ; " must have, must have "
is the answer, but on examination it is found that the



28 THE CLAIM OF SUFFERING

account is based on a totally erroneous idea of the
nature of the complaint. It is difficult to make a
satisfactory diagnosis when the patients describe their
illness in such terms as these, " All night long a pigeon
danced on my liver," " I have a sensation of a pot
boiling in my inside," or " I feel as if a bird was flutter-
ing in my leg ". It is more difficult still when it comes
to a question of caste, for then it may be that the
patient is on one side of the curtain while the English
doctor is on the other, and caste prevents him seeing
her. These bonds of caste survive even an English
education as in the case of a Sikh, house surgeon to a
Government hospital. He came one morning to Mrs.
