HEALTH HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 66, 18 March 1905, Page 10

HEALTH HINTS.

BREATHING. To increase the breathing capacity is to awaken newness of life. If one realised the immense benefits to be gained from proper breathing, he would breathe correctly all the time. The most effectual remedy for the "blues" is deep breathing, accompanied by optimistic suggestion. Deficient breathing is a prolific breeder of nervousness, fretfulness, and fear. The habit of right breathing fills the whole being with sunshine. ERYSIPELAS. Erysipelas means "red skin," and it has also in ordinary language been known as "Rose" for the same reason. It is due to the violent irritation produced by the presence of streptococci in the connective tissue beneath the skin. Streptococci are micrococci (little roundbodies) arranged in chains or strings of dots like strings of beads. They grow rapidly along the lymphatic spaces unuer the skin, and in the days before antiseptics the disease was endemic in certain hospitals, and cau«a deaths in their surgicH.l wards owing to the infection of wounds. Even the smallest operations in these circumstances became a serious matter, and might indirectly cause death. Now erysipelas is treated apart when it occurs in hospitals, aud it may be said never to assume serious proportions in surgical work. The skin is red, and the eruption ends at an abrupt margin where a distinct elevation of the red skin can be seen and even felt. Blebs are apt to appear over the eruption of irregular shape. The swelling feels hard, and there is a distinctly warm feeling of the skin of the part. The degree to which these changes occur distinguishes erysipelas from the less intense inflammations of the skin produced by the less severe irritants, and the patient suffers from fever as shown by the thermometer and by the rapidity of the pulse. Moreover/ he feels ill, while the less intense inflammations merely produce local discomfort; Occasional cases occur where, although the other signs arc present, the redness of the skin does not occur, and it h..s been called '"white erysipelas," which, of course, is a contradiction in terms. The treatment of erysipelas when it involves a wound (surgical erysipelas) must depend on the site and the severity of the inflammation, and it may demand a very free exit for the pus formed in the process. When an intact surface is involved there is much greater tendency to recovery, and ichthyol as au ointment or in solution and applied frequently will show improvement in a few hours. R/ Ichthyol ldr.. adepis lanae ad loz. Mix and make into an ointment; or E/ Ichthyol loz., aqxiae soz. Dissolve and keep rag soaked with lotion and applied to place involved. NEW LIGHT ON APPENDICITIS. In the "Nineteenth Century and After" one of the contributors to Sir James Knowdes' periodical, Dh. James Kidd, M.D., throws fresh light on bhe cause and prevention of appendicitis. Noting the fact that cases of appendicitis were very infrequent until twenty years ago, Dr. Kidd says that chills and hurried eating are Undoubtedly the main causes of the disease. But chills and hurried eating were common before appendicitis became so prevalent. There is another great point. Tweniy-five years ago people began to dose themselves with Hungarian waters, aperient salts, and liver piljs, and continue to do so to t-his day. "It is natural to ask, what have aperient waters and salts to do with appendicitis? To thai, a very true answer is that the action of saline purgatives is to cause a flaw of water through' the intestinal canal. This passes off quick-, Iy, but, alas! it leaves the solid portions to accumulate in the caecum at the right side, near the appendix, where the small intestine ends and the large one commences. The solid portions left in the eolem become tnore and more putrid, cause obstruction, and infect the appendix. Peritonitis follows, with extreme danger to life. "In health, when natUTo is not hindered from doing "her ordinary work, the food, after mastication, has to pass out of the stomach through the first door (f.he pylorus), which stays its progress '-for some hours. Nal ure is not impat.ient~; that is, she waits and works slowby, and rebels if 111----mastieaied fragments try to get through, In th« JBrst portion of thp intestino (the durclonum) the bile anrl pancreatic- secretion work on the food to soften it yet more. All through the twenty feet of the smali intestine the food is still further softened, till it slowly reaches the colon on the right side (the caecum), which arrests it for a time. Here nature pours out abundant 'succus eniericus' to finish the digestion, and thick glairy mucus to help it slowly onwards through the fifty-four inches of the colon. Now comes in the danger of aperient salts and waters—to hurry on the watery portion and leave the undigested de : bris to accumulate and putrefy in the caecum, and become the prey of bacterial infection, causing peritonitis and appendicitis." To prevent appendicitis, then, one must not neglect chills; must eat slowly and not swallow any food that is not perfectly-, softened by the teeth, and, above all, avoid aperient salts, waj ters, and pills. "Salads, fruit, nuts, almonds, and raisins may be taken freely if really well masticated. Aperient salts, waters, or pills, must be avoided, nature herself being the- best physician.