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PATHAN SYNDROME - A CONTRAST WITH INDIAN PATIENTS
O P Kapoor
Hon. Visiting Physician, Jaslok Hospital and Bombay Hospital, Mumbai, Ex. Hon. Prof. of Medicine, Grant Medical College and JJ Hospital, Mumbai 400 008.
Sometime back, I wrote an article on "Comparison of pathans with Arab patients". This was after I had seen over a thousand pathans. Since that time I have seen another thousand pathan patients. I have been now trying to compare pathans with the Indian patients. The following are my observations.Most of the pathans are tall, heavy and overweight (even pathans who are 70 to 80 kilos frequently come with the request if they can put on another 10 to 20 kilos). Most of them are very fair, very pink and handsome, On general examination, I notice the following:
1 . Their hair are beautiful and they have less incidence of premature greying, Most of them have excess hair on their body.
2. Regarding their eyes, I have hardly ever seen trachoma or corneal opacity. In fact, hardly ever a pathan wears eye glasses even for presbyopia.
3. The nose of a pathan is clean, except often full of snuff.
4. The throat hardly ever shows enlarged adenoids or tonsils or emits any bad smell.
5. Most of them have very healthy and shining gums. They have excellent set of white teeth and hardly any fluorosis.
6. Their tongues are clean with no coating (they do not use tongue cleaners).
7. The skin of the whole body is so clean that though they sweat profusely they hardly ever have tinea versicolor. Even the groins are free of any fungus infection (could it be because they don't wear underwears?) Unlike Indians perineal skin is clean and shaved. Even the incidence of warts is less.
8. Their palms are always very pink.
9. Most of them have normal 13P, but in some of them systolic pressure is high possibly because of overweight.
10. The incidence of IHD is very rare in pathans.
11. Diabetes is rare.
12. The frequency of abdominal parasites and dysentery is rare.
13. In pathans, the genitals are clean and neat. They are clean shaved and a pathan looks after this area as much as he looks after his face.
14, Though the incidence of chronic prostatitis is very high in pathans, externally, their testicles are always normal, and I have never seen any hydrocoele or hernia in over 2000 pathans seen by me till now. Why such diseases are rare in this community I cannot explain.
15. The nails of the pathan patients are pink, smooth and shining. I have never seen opaque or brittle nails or any fungus infection.
16. The thyroid enlargement (goitre) or hypo or hyperthyroidism is hardly ever seen in pathans.
17. Splenomegaly is very rare in pathans and they hardly ever suffer from malaria (although, they are exposed to the same mosquitoes and live in the usual dirty surroundings).
18. Even the liver enlargement is hardly ever seen (of course 99.5% of them do not consume alcohol, the rest 0.5% do so occasionally).
From the above description, the impression gained is that on the whole, the physical health of a pathan patient is excellent and one of the best in the world. Why is it so, I do not know. The next question is, why do they come to the doctors so often? Why do they go on changing the doctors? Why are they fond of seeing a number of doctors and are never satisfied with any doctor? Why do their complaints continue?
The answer is as follows:
The total health consists of a combination of good physical, mental, sexual and social health. Though, the pathans beat the average Indian patients in physical health, their mental, sexual and social health are very poor. By mental health I do not mean increased incidence of psychiatric illnesses, but the pathans are of suspicious nature and have a lot of anger. All the time they worry about their so called piles, about so called hypertension, symptoms of chronic prostatitis (which is difficult to cure in many patients) and the anxiety about their sexual problems.
Their sexual health is bound to be poor because they are away from their wives for years together in the peak of their youth. Only occasionally, a pathan might visit a prostitute or a girl friend. Majority of them are against this. Not only that, they do not like night discharges. They are absolutely against the habit of masturbation. Thus they suffer tremendously and have imaginary and of course real sexual problems.
Finally, unlike an Indian patient who very often has wife, children and a joint family, the pathans have forgotten about this social structure because of the adverse conditions in their country for the last number of years (and possibly for number of years to come). They are away from their country to earn a living and to send some money to their families. In a country like India, all the time they have problems with the police, visas and the other authorities.
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