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9 November 1970

Dear Jack:

I have delayed answering your letter till I could learn that you had been to see Doris. This weekend when as usual I called her and asked if she has see you, she said, "Two nights after Hallowe'en." She told me she was seeing a woman psych [[strikethrough]]ologist[[/strikethrough]] iatrist whom she likes "twice a week at $30 a visit, but I need help," she said. So, Jack, I think you are the one that got her to do it. I don't know how much good mere talking with the woman will do her. She said herself that the male psychiatrist didn't do her any good. It is something like trying to cure a diabetic by just talking to him. The trouble has a physical cause, as I wrote you before, something in the chemistry of the body going haywire that brings out these emotional outbursts. Doris told me only last Sunday "I have such a terrible temper" implying that she couldn't control it.

When I asked if she had read the article in the Reader's Digest for November in which I had referred her to a piece on the treatment by lithium carbonate (the news of it has been published in three publications that I know) she said she hadn't had time to, but she would speak about it to her psychiatrist. As yet I think the drug may be used only in mental hospitals. I do wish that Doris could have it preseribed [[prescribed]] to her when she is in need. Up to now the hospitals'only method of treating such patients is by tranquilizers. If this drug does have some chemical properties to affect the mania, it is the first thing up to now that does any real good.

Otherwise I cannot see in the future any great happiness. If this is to recur every so often, and it will likely be especially bad at the menopause, it means that she cannot hold any job for long or support herself. I don't know how much longer I shall live, and without you or me, she will be alone. 

As to my estate, the Internal Revenue will take so much that interest on what is left, will not amount to enough to support her. I have seen how a trust fund worked in the case of Mrs.d'Avila. Her father, a well-to-do physician, left his money in trust for her, the money after her death togo to an orphanage. She needed the principal of that money badly inthe last years of her life to the extent that even within a few weeks of her death she was trying to keep on with her job long after she was able to. Doris is going to need all my money and then some before she dies. I have been talking with a lawyer and he has offered another solution but I want to talk it over with Doris, and, of course, you. too.

I feel the loss of you in my little family, you and Doris were all I had, and I have always had admiration and affection for you and your mother too. Doris has never said a word against you to me in all her years with you. I know even now how your words count with her. After all, she has seen you through all your years of struggle to the position you now hold. But I can understand very well how you feel and sympathize, too.

Please let me hear from you how she is - you are the only one I know who has contact with her, and I am so worried.

As ever,
DHB