Doctors Onstage

In the Tower Theater in downtown Atlanta, an overflow crowd spilled into the orchestra pit, backed up into the aisles; outside, latecomers shoved at the doors. The show had barely got underway when the night was rent by keening sirens, and fire engines roared to the theater entrance.

But there was no fire, and the firemen were only playing it safe. They had come to clear the aisles and exits. The show went on--an astonishingly popular amateur performance, seventh in a series of public forums on "You and Your Health."

Arterial Coincidence. The Atlanta Journal organized the forums after noting the popularity of similar forums in St. Petersburg, Fla.--and after two years of prodding the lethargic, publicity-shy Fulton County Medical Society. Once the plan was approved, Atlanta's doctors pitched in, joined the newsmen in selecting eight top physicians to act as moderators, assigned some 75 others to serve as speakers and panel members at eight weekly forums. The week Stalin died of a brain hemorrhage brought on by hardened arteries, Atlantans swarmed to the Tower Theater to attend the first forum.

Its subject (by sheer coincidence): hardening of the arteries.

Week after week the crowds returned.

They pushed into the Tower to hear 15-minute lectures on subjects that ranged from "The Common Cold" to "Constipation and Cathartics." Last week more than 1,900, the largest crowd yet, waited out the fire scare, filled up the aisles again after the firemen left, and carried on a brisk, free-wheeling discussion of "Emotional Problems."

Mother Love. Psychiatrist Joseph Skobba led off with a talk on the subject of the evening, keeping the pitch clear and simple. Among his general prescriptions:

"Face problems squarely; live in the present.

"Get plenty of rest, food and recreation. The tired and hungry individual has a poor tolerance for emotional tension.

"Have a major goal and several minor ones. These . . . give direction . . . and provide opportunities for successes.

"Give others the right to be wrong, different and even peculiar."

Afterward came the question period, with panel members taking turns answering. Samples:

Q. Can emotional disturbances cause cancer of the stomach?

A. No.

Q. Is television a serious problem in child growth?

A. We haven't realized that our parents feared we would all be killed by automobiles. We're going to have to face the facts that our children will adjust themselves to television better than we can. Maybe a mother's next worry will be what happens to her daughter when she flies to Paris for the weekend.

Q. If the baby is crying, should you hold it or let it cry?

A. It depends on whose baby it is. If it is your baby, hold it. There was a feeling 20 years ago that you should teach children to control themselves, that ten days after the baby was born you should put it in the bathroom, shut the door, turn up the radio and let the baby cry itself out. But I think the baby has the right to have the love of its mother for at least several months or a year or two.

Atlantans, who have already received some $80,000 worth of free medical advice from the "You and Your Health" forums, will continue to get such aid through the summer. For shut-ins, and those who were shut out of the crowded Tower Theater, the Atlanta Journal plans to repeat the eight forums on TV.

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