ly all right. Then in a
minute the whole world was like some scene from a nightmare. A week or
ten days later the attack would cease as mysteriously as it had come and
they would be their old self again.

LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain of
modern life?

NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly
overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at
UCLA. Even as a boy I can remember my grandfather deploring the stress
and strain of modern life when he was a country doctor practicing in
Indiana. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributions
anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that
primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions
as those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have found
savages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among the
mountain tribes of the Elgonyi and the Aruntas of Australia. No, Mr.
Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junk
pile along with demoniac possession and blood letting.

LATHAM. You must have done something for your patients--

NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come to
his office seeking help. First I gave them a thorough physical
examination. I turned up some minor ailments--a slight heart murmur or a
trace of albumin in the urine--but nothing of any significance. On the
whole they were a remarkably healthy bunch of individuals, much more so
than an average sample of the population. Then I made a searching
inquiry into their personal life. Here again I drew a blank. They had no
particular financial worries. Their sex life was generally satisfactory.
There was no history of mental illness in the family. In fact, the only
thing that seemed to be the matter with them was that there were times
when they felt like hell.

LATHAM. I suppose you tried tranquilizers?

NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of
the meprobamate type there was some slight improvement. I want to
emphasize, however, that I do not believe in prescribing shotgun
remedies for a patient. To my way of thinking it is a lazy slipshod way
of carrying on the practice of medicine. The only thing for which I do
give myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailed
record of their symptoms taking special care to note the time of
exacerbation--increase in the severity o