THE PHYSICIAN.
A physician's duties in a prison are necessarily onerous, important and difficult. Convicts are constantly claiming that they are unable physically to do the work assigned them. No one can determine the truthfulness of their statements except the physician, and to determine whether the convict is really ill or exercising his usual finesse to shirk his duties, requires keen judgment of human nature as well as an accurate knowledge of his profession.
The convict, housed and hemmed in, is peculiarly susceptible to hallucinations and to thinking that he is afflicted with imaginary ills.
A physician needs a large fund of good judgment, will-power and common sense to combat successfully with this class of people. How far he should use some of the subterfuges supposed to be employed by physicians in the outside world in dealing with people afflicted with hypochondria, I am unable to say, but a certain amount of cheerfulness coupled with firmness is undoubtedly of great value.