CHAPTER XXII.
REPLIES TO MEDICAL INQUIRIES.
For many years past it has been incumbent upon all candidates seeking employment in the Post-office, as in other public departments, to undergo medical examination, with the view of securing healthy persons for the service; and in the course of such examinations the medical officer requires to make inquiry into the state of health of the candidates' parents, brothers, sisters, &c., the information being elicited in forms to be filled up by the candidates. Though it is not to be expected that persons entering as postmen, messengers, and so on, should exhibit perfection in their orthography, still, in referring to the more common troubles that afflict the human frame, some approach to an intelligible description of diseases might be hoped for. Dr Lewis, who held the post of medical officer in the General Post-office, London, for many years, recorded the following examples of answers received to his questions:—
"Father had sunstroke, and I caught it of him." "My little brother died of some funny name." "A great white cat drawed my sister's breath, and she died of it." A parent died of "Apperplexity"; another died of "Parasles." One "caught Tiber fever in the Hackney Road"; another had had "goarnders"; a third "burralger in the head." Some of the other complaints were described as "rummitanic pains," "carracatic fever," "indigestion of the lungs," "toncertina in the throat," "pistoles on the back." One candidate stated that "his sister was consumpted, now she's quite well again"; while the sister of another was stated to have "died of compulsion."
It is to be hoped that the work of the school boards will be seen in the absence of such answers from the medical officers' schedules of the future.
In addition to the medical scrutiny as to health, all candidates for service have to give satisfactory accounts in regard to their previous employment; and this is elicited by means of questions put to the candidate on what is known as the A. form.
The following are questions and answers in the case of a young lady candidate:—
Write your Christian and surname in full.
Elizabeth B——
Your usual signature?
Yours ever, Lizzie.
State how you have been employed since leaving school.
Ans. Music and singing, and nursing dear mamma, who is an invalid!