Contrary to general belief, Lord Horder, whose eminence as a medical man is undoubted, has declared to a London journalist that left lateral decubitus is not necessarily harmful, though it might be the cause of some trifling incotivenience, making, perhaps, the liver to hang over somewhat. Sleeping on the right side, however, may be conductive of better digestion, the processes of gravity favouring it. The use of strange and unusual words, even though be found in a non-technical dictionary, is one of the means to which the learned professions resort for the purpose of shrouding it work with that degree of mystery which seems to have an hypnotic effect upon patients and clients. Why "left lateral decubitus" when all that needs to be said is "sleeping on the left side?" There can be mot the slightest doubt that the use of highly technical phrases has the effect upon some patients of restoring confidence. They probably cannot even pronounce the words used, or comprehend their meaning, or even remember them, but the fact that a physician has been able to give a name, no matter how high sounding it may be, to the trouble, is clear enough proof that he knows what it is all about and has the situation well in hand. Perhaps on some the reaction is entirely different, especially amongst those who really like to know what is the matter with them. In such cases obscure phrases and technical terminology arouse all the latent suspicion of the ignorant, who are made to fear that they are really in a worse case than is the fact. On them the statement of the doctor that he will have to perform an appendectomy is far more alarming than the simple statement that the appendix will have io be removed, for all those other alarming and comparatively misunderstood words flash through the sufferers mind. But in all probability the first class predominates amongst patients; they like to know that their ailment has a satisfactory name, it sounds so much more important, but "left lateral decubitus" is re-minis cent of the abracadabra of the witch doctor or the weaver of enchantments.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.