Malingering and feigned sickness / by Sir John Collie... assisted by Arthur H. Spicer.

  • Collie, John, Sir, 1860-1935.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Malingering and feigned sickness / by Sir John Collie... assisted by Arthur H. Spicer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    slightest physical symptoms (or, it may be, upon none at all), are readily and accurately described as cases of malinger- ing ; but there are other cases to which the expression cannot be so easily applied. The undue prolongation of illness, the unwilhngness to return to work, and the exaggeration of symptoms, are all matters which may well fall under the same classification; and it is not necessary that deliberate fraud should alone be present in order to make a person a malingerer. Only a comparatively small proportion of the vast number of sick people are out-and-out malingerers, but it must be remem- bered that, although the number is a relatively small one, there is, in the aggregate, a large number of working-class men and women who, in returning, linger on the threshold of work. I am aware that in a large number of cases workmen do not share the opinion expressed by the medical man who examines on behalf of the employer. Apart altogether from attempts to postpone return to work, by deliberate mahngering, there is a large number of men who put off the return to laborious work merely because they do not appreciate that complete recovery is always a gradual process, and that stiffness, and even some slight degree of pain, seldom entirely disappear until an injured part has been subjected to a certain amount of movement and exercise—'Such, indeed, as they might reasonably be expected to put up with, having regard to the fact that it can only be of a temporary nature. I am convinced that this is the real ex- planation of a large number of cases which find their way to the Arbitration Courts. Statistics relating to this particular class of cases are prac- tically non-existent, for until recently attention has not been drawn to the matter ; I am therefore, in dealing with this subject, forced to draw mainly from my own experience. Two large pubhc bodies and some fifteen to twenty insurance companies send sick and injured workpeople to me for my opinion as to their fitness or otherwise for work. For some years past I have seen approximately 2,000 such cases a year, and 25 per cent, (one in every four) were reported to be fit for work. The majority of these were not typical mahngerers, but they would, nevertheless, from various causes, have unduly prolonged their illnesses. It is impossible to examine so large a number of cases and not come to certain definite conclusions