HEALTH HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 244, 12 October 1907, Page 11

HEALTH HINTS.

Wo2_E— A— _ ___-_S. There is j marked increase in the consumption oi drugs of all sorts these last few years, and a deplorable teudeucv 01 the part of the public to dose itself "promiscuously with capsules and cachets and powders and phis, irrespective of medical! advice or cominonsense methods. Who cares to listen these days to the advice} which demands rest and quiet life and simple diet, when (writes Dr. Elizabeth i-loan Chesser in the"Queen) half-a-crown will purchase a box of pills guaranteed to effect a "cure" in the shortest possible time without trouble or personal inconvenience? The evils of precarious dosing cannot be condemned too strongly. Women are perhaps the chief offenders. I It is the exceptional woman who has ■ never swallowed au anti-headache medicine in her life. A bottle of phenacetin I is to many women as much of a necessity j as a tobacco pouch to an inveterate male smoker. There is something remarkable I about tha attitude of the chronic doser to the most dangerous drugs in the British pharmacopoeia. Most of us are alive to the danger oi swallowing drugs for insomnia, and it is the exceptional woman who takes medicines for sleeplessness without a doctor's permission. The morphia maniac also is rarer than the alarmist would I_e us ■. to believe. The drugging craze is more evident in relation to tonics and purgatives and anodynes or pain-soothing drugs. The habit of | TAKTXG DRUGS FOR HEADACHE, for example, is very common; it is so insidious and so apparently harmless One dose has such a marvellous effect for good at first; then tne dose is graduJ ally increased, and the health most cer- ! tainly suffers. The doctor may have orI dered the medicine in the first instance, but he assuredly never meant it to be ) | taken regularly for years. The purchase of toilet drugs, so long ! as they are for external application only, is of very little consequence. When, how- ' ever, a woman is seized by a desire to better her complexion or her figure by imbibing medicines, the quantity of stuff she will swallow in a given time ! is almost incredible. Vanity is the I strongest weakness of the gentler sex. I but the physiological effects of a course ' [of drugs, self-prescribed and sell-admin- I I istered. are calculated in the end to make the vainest of women regret her methods ! of self-improvement. It is to be regretted that arsenic can Le so easily obtained by quite young girls, whose faith in its efficacy for im- ' I proving the complexion leads them to • tamper with their health without quali-' ■ lied advice. I know a girl who neariy poisoned herself with thyroid extract be- ! cause she had heard it made the hair I grow. Amongst drugs we must include ALCOHOL AND TEA, when they are taken by women for their j stimulating properties. It is the woman , who is run down, and whose nerves are out of order, to whom the alcohol habit is the greatest danger. A liquer or a whisky and soda taken to counteract fatigue or "nerves'* is a drug, and an extremely dangerous drug, in that it has to be frequently repeated to maintain its effect. The habit of taking "nips" or pick-me-ups is popularly supposed to be confined to the much-abused smart set, but in all grades of society women are to be found, who, although cever : apparently under the influence of alcohol, are undermining their constitutions and their mental and moral health by a sort of modified "tippling." When a woman has to take alcohol two or three times a day to keep her up to the mark, it is : time she consulted a medical man as to i ] the state of her health. j Tea of all drugs is the least harmful. ,In fact, so long as it is not taken in : place cf food, it can hardly be classified . amongst dangerous drugs. But when tea | 13 taken for headaches or nerves, or in place of a good square meal, it is certainly an evil. Women are more apt to : "stave off headache and to bring themselves up to the with cups of strcng . tea, and excess of tea-drinking is very often at the root of the ill-health and anaunia of young girls, who then proceed | to swallow* bottles of tonics and boxes j of iron pills without the slightest bene- j ficiai effect. i THE DANGER OF EXPERIMENTS. It is fatal to take medicines at all | without medical advice, because once be- j ' gun the habit of seli-drugging is so diffi- j cult to break off. Many people begin j dosing themselves experimentally; they j I wonder how a certain drug, which has done so much for their next-door neigh- . i bour, will affect them, and woe betide | ! them if that drug happens to be morphia, cocaine, or "cure for insomnia."' Neural- | gia and insomnia start — indreds of peo--1 people on the downward track, whilst I headaches are responsible for a great ■ many women having begun on such drugs jas plu— acetin and antipyrin, and come j Ito depend upon them solely for relief j from periodic headaches. The introduction of compressed drugs. I • which are most useful, safe, and valuable when properly prescribed by a medical practitioner, has taken away people's natural terror of poisonous medicines. I Many people make a of retailing their symptoms to chemists, and I taking any medicine they advisa Only careful legislation can deal with the drug question, so far as curtailing the sale of dangerous drugs. At the present mo- ! ment it is perfectly easy for people to buy almost any drug they like; no chemist will refuse to sell a bottle or pills which may contain a sufficient quantity of strychnine or arsenic, for example, to poison three or four people ! without a medical prescription.