'By this time [1944], the spinal patients had been moved from ward 10 to ward 1x, on the south side of the hospital, on which the Spinal Centre [(44-45)] was to be built up. Dr. Guttmann had a small office in ward 1x, which is now a side-ward, and, apart from the usual array of office furniture and a natural disorder (!) there was a large wooden cabinet affair, called the "sweat box." Often, when I was called to the office for dictation, there would be some patient or other, his body covered in purple powder, sweating in this curious contraption, with an orderly sitting by the side, peering through the glass windows and reporting on the progress at frequent intervals, whereupon Dr. Guttmann would leap up and gaze at the patient in raptures, shouting with glee and enthusiasm at what he saw. Sometimes he would call me over to have a look and would explain to me the significance of a wet patch here or a dry patch there, but, though I would do my best to be intelligent about the whole thing, even to this day all that a patient in a sweat-box represents to me is a body covered in purple powder, which is mottled in appearance because he sweats in some places and not in others.' (44-45)

'My first big job was to prepare a table of statistics for the Ministry. This entailed interviewing every patient in the Centre, and I can still vividly recall the acute misery it caused me. Donned in a white coat and almost overcome with shyness and embarrassment, I was plunged into the unfamiliar routine of ward life, in order to carry out this bed to bed survey. It was, I remember, quite impossible to record some of the replies I had to my "And tell me, have you any hobbies?"' (45)