The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-05
ROYAL HYPOCHONDRIACs.
The Crown Princess of sweden's I'M
aginary Consumption.
From the New York Tribune.

aginary Consumption.
From the New York Tribune
Much has been heard about the deli
cate state of health Of the Crown Princess
of Sweden, who for three years has been
reported in the last stage of consumption.
1t has even been proclaimed at the begin
ming of each winter that she could not
possibly live through it. 1t is somewhat
startling, therefore, to learn that a con-
sultation of the most eminent German,
Swedish and French specialists, assem-
bled for the purpose at Baden-Baden, has
resulted in definite decision that there
is nothing on earth the matter with the
princess save a nervous ailment of a hy-
pochondriac character, almost identical
with that from which her mother-in-law,
the Queen of Sweden, is suffering.
These great medical authorities have at
length decided that her throat and her
lungs are in ain absolutely healthy condi-
ton; that the physicians who have been
humoring her firm convictions that she
was dying of tuberculosis and treating her
for that ailment have been culpable of
preferring to court the favor of their royal
patient rather than to give an honest di-
agnosis, and that there was no reason
whatsoever for her passing her winters
in a hot climate such as that of Cairo,
Biskra in Algiers, and in Sicily as she has
hitherto been in the habit of doing.
All this must be exceedingly Notifying
to the relatives of the princess, all the
more when they recall to mind the fuss
made about her, especially when travel
ing The young lady has insisted on being
conveyed to and from her railway car.
riage in litter, apparently in an almost
unconscious condition. 1t remains to be
seen what the worthy Swedes will say to
this They have hitherto been content to
dispense with the princess presence at
Stockholm on the understanding that the
condition of her lungs did not admit OF
her living there.
Married in 1881, she has scarcely spent
more than eight months in Sweden in as
many years, and inasmuch as the queen
like herself, imagines herself to be dying
the Swedish court has remained to all m
tents and purposes without any lady at
it's head, the only other one of King Os-
cars sons who is married being his sec
| ond, who contracted a morganatic alli-
ance The worst feature of the whole al
fair is that the crown princess has been
content to live almost permanently apart
| from her three little boys, the eldest u and
| the youngest 6 years old, who stay per-
manenhy with their father the, crown
prince, in Sweden, among the people over
| whom the eldest of them is eventually
| TO reign.
The funny point in all this is that the
| Swedes have undergone almost Identical
| ly the same experience with their queen
who has been a confirmed hypochrondlac
| for years, and has imagined herself INTO
a state of debility from which she VIII
| probably never recover. For years she
| consulted the leading specialists of Eu-
rope, but only two, Dr. Metzgar of Ans
terdam and Wiesbaden and DR.. Frieder-
| ichs of Heidelberg, had the courage TO
| tell her that her .malady was of purely
| imaginable character, and that II she was
| suffering from anything 1t was merely
! from the medicines given to her by her
| complaisant physicians, who had found
| it worth their while TO humor her behel
that she was consumptive:
There are, Of course, many hypochron-
! driacs of this kind-people who are con-
| WINGED that they are suffering from every
malady under the sun-and one OF the
most eminent and famous specialists In
| diseases of the chest In London openly
confessed on one occasion that at least
| so per cent. of the great ladies thronglnS
| his waiting room were afflicted with pure
| ly imaginary complaints. 1T would NOT
] do however, to tell them so. II l were
| TO do this they would merely go TO some
other physician and complain everywhere
| of me as incapable OF understanding their
/ case"
| 1t is all the more astonishing that the
| crown princess of Sweden should have
turned out thus, as she has received a
most thorough and sensible education, her
| mother, the Grand Duchess of Baden, only
| daughter OF old Emperor William, being
/ one Of the most shrewd, unaffected and
| lxind-hearted women In Europe, and most
deservedly popular.