Meet Yourself at the Doctor's

Mass Observation was founded by Tom Harrisson, Charles Madge and Humphrey Jennings in 1937. Its purpose was to create 'an anthropology of ourselves' in other words, to study the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. Discounting an initial pamphlet, this was the twentieth book to be published. It appears in Faber Finds as a part of an extensive reissue programme of the original Mass Observation titles.

Both Meet Yourself at the Doctor's and its companion Meet Yourself on Sunday were first published in 1949 towards the end of Mass Observation's initial period. They share something else in common: they are both gloriously illustrated by Ronald Searle.

This Mass Observation study was written at a particularly interesting time, a year after the creation of the National Health Service. Patients describe their experiences in waiting-rooms and consulting-rooms: the children's clinic is seen through the eyes of the mothers who visit it: a doctor discusses his daily-round: a hospital patient describes tells how it feels to be the subject of a bedside clinic.

The sum is a vivid piece of social history, a first-hand report of unmatched immediacy.