In Chapter 1, the prescription given by the doctor for Jim's treatment leaves us in no doubt that Jim is a hypochondriac. Elaborate.

In Chapter One, Jim has gone to see his doctor because of a strange predicament: after having read up on a myriad of diseases from a book at the British Museum, Jim concludes that he does not have 'housemaid's knee,' the only disease in the book he has not been inflicted with.

Convinced that he has, by equal turns, suffered from every known malady in the book, Jim resolves to settle the conundrum with his doctor. After all, up until then, Jim had always believed he was unique from a medical point of view.

I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class!  Students would have no need to “walk the hospitals,” if they had me.  I was a hospital in myself.  All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

His doctor's prescription involves Jim ingesting a pound of beefsteak with a pound of bitter beer every six hours, along with the admonition to take a ten mile walk each morning, to go to bed at eleven sharp each night, and to refrain from reading copious amounts of medical material. Prior to writing out his prescription, Jim's doctor hits Jim in the chest and butts him with the side of his head.

In Jim's own words, he follows the prescription to the letter and testifies that his life was preserved as a result. Basically, if Jim had really been ill, the doctor would have prescribed medicine a pharmacist would have been able to dispense. However, since Jim is not physically ill and is only fond of supposing himself beset with all sorts of ailments, the prescription purposefully treats his hypochondriac tendencies. The last line of the prescription is telling: the doctor orders Jim to stop filling up his imagination with medical material likely to exacerbate his paranoid inclinations. We are left in no doubt that Jim is a hypochondriac, as this last line of the prescription addresses the characteristic propensities of one who suffers from an overactive imagination rather than a genuine physical malady.