In this week’s Takimag column, Theodore Dalrymple dives into the consequences of a story from England, where a doctor has been suspended for selling fake sick notes.

Distress can be conjured out of almost anything and is not necessarily proportional to whatever causes it. Dwelling on the ill treatment one has suffered—and who has not suffered ill treatment at some time in his life?—can magnify something minor into something major, to the point at which it seems almost to have ruined one’s life.