Medicine: Overzealous Doctoring

Doctors specializing in sterility problems can do as much harm as good, one of their number suggested last week. Dr. Eric M. Matsner of Beverly Hills, Calif, told fellow members of the American Society for the Study of Sterility: “In our attempts to be scientific … we may be overzealous, forgetting at times that we are dealing with troubled human beings. . . Infertile couples are not laboratory animals to be used for clinical research and experimentation; their case histories should not be taken by impersonal and involved questionnaires attempting to out-Kinsey Kinsey in thoroughness.”

By doing too much, said Dr. Matsner, the well-meaning physician may defeat his own purpose. The taking of basal body temperatures for many months, daily vaginal smears and repeated tissue tests can provoke anxiety that leads to tension and to spasm of the fallopian tubes. “By the time a woman gets through with these tests,” Dr. Matsner said, “she is so tense that conception is impossible. The poor girl is thinking of exact times and methods, instead of relaxing and letting nature take its course. The couple’s sex life should not be regulated by the calendar or dictated by the physician.”