Keeping Up Appearances

Dr Max Pemberton muses on our societal obsession with appearance and why it’s becoming a problem in the medical world.

And now we come through to the bedroom,” said the tour guide. I was eight years old and at a National Trust property on our family summer holiday in Dorset. I whined at my mum that I was bored and wanted to leave for an ice-cream. She replied with a glare and told me to behave. I huffed and began a low-grade sulk.

“And of course in this very room, in 1840, Jemima gave birth to her first son, Thomas” continued the tour guide looking directly at me, “It was a very difficult birth, and Jemima had lost lots of blood. The doctor feared she was going to die, so once the baby was born, they put him in a chamber pot under the bed, leaving him for dead so that they could concentrate on saving the mother.” It began to occur to me that if I didn’t behave, perhaps this woman would push me under the bed and leave me for dead.

“They didn’t care about the baby?” I asked, horrified.