Last updated 21:40, Thursday, 27 March 2008

WHY MAKE patients on the operating table count after being given anaesthetic?

Why not recite the alphabet? No need then to worry about reaching the dreaded number 13!

Workington’s Dr Isaac Fletcher, giving a talk in 1934, said he’d often heard patients beg the surgeon. “Oh, doctor, be quick and get me over before I count 13,” or “Make me count quickly so I get over number 13.”

Once passed that number, they were happy to lapse into unconsciousness, when, of course, they stopped counting.

Except for an Irish patient he’d come across, who “went on counting after losing consciousness and got as far as 602 before he stopped.”

He thought Scots were more superstitious than the English and told of the time he was staying up in Scotland.

The lady of the house, seeing him cutting his fingernails – on a Friday - almost went into hysterics and swore that he’d brought bad luck upon himself.

The next day, his son was knocked out while playing rugby for his university.

Two days later, “another son had his arm broken in two places later while playing for Workington.” Coincidence?

We no longer believe in such superstitions. So I thought. And I was wrong.

I’d forgotten the superstition about taking flowers to hospital.

I’ve heard that ward sisters, at one time, would absolutely forbid anyone to bring in a bunch of mixed white and red flowers. So unlucky, because it meant that someone, not necessarily the recipient of the gift, on that ward would die.

Could you get a florist to make you up such a bouquet, if she knew where they were going? Probably not.

Red flowers are okay. Red equals healthy, white equals sick. And droopy white flowers? Never!

Don’t lay a bouquet on a patient’s bed. And never ever take hospital flowers home, even if you’ve been given them as a present.

When hospital visiting, best take a bunch of grapes. There aren’t any superstitions about bunches of grapes, as far as I know.

Unlike days of the week. It’s bad luck to call a doctor out on a Friday.

Why? Your guess is as good as mine. But Fridays are bad news for the superstitious. Remember, anything started on a Friday is likely to fail and crimes committed on a Friday will be found out.

Don’t start a new job, get married, engaged, move house, set sail or go on any long journey.

And if it’s Friday the 13th, it’s a full moon and you’re superstitious, best write the day off and stay in bed.

A lot of people do. Absenteeism rockets every Friday 13th.

So you’re in hospital, and you’re being sent home on Saturday. Not a good move! Leave on a Saturday and you’ll likely to be back in double quick time.

There’s a cryptic rhyme which covers this. “Saturday Flit. Short sit!”

In some superstitious countries, this belief in unlucky days has caused bed blocking.

What about medics’ superstitions? I’ve found a few, most in common with other occupations.

Never mention the “Q” word! Don’t ask if things are busy. Do so, and you’ll be rushed off your feet.

Never mention the names of awkward patients; they’re bound to turn up.

Two cases of broken legs in casualty mean a third is due

Things happen in threes, a belief common to many occupations.

No doubt medics do have other superstitions, but the only other one I’ve unearthed is their not wanting to work with “black clouds” – individuals who seem to attract chaos and complications.

But, whatever business we’re in, we all know one of those.

Isaac Fletcher told of a man who, being dumb, had a notice pinned to his chest which read: “If I take severe pains in the abdomen, don’t remove my appendix, it’s been removed three times already.”

Like the man who, according to a possibly humorous piece in the Workington Star in 1909, having collapsed in a strange town, was rushed off to hospital, diagnosed with appendicitis, operated on – only to discover it had already been removed - later dying from the effects of the operation.

At the inquest, the coroner, who was also the town’s postmaster, after delivering his verdict, filled in the space after “cause of death” with a rubber stamp which read “opened by mistake.”