HEALTH HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 28 March 1908, Page 13

HEALTH HINTS.

THE EMETIC OUT OF FASHION.

The emetic has in a large measure lost its prestige. "It is not aesthetic treatment to cause a patient's stomach to eject its contents. At the same time, says a physician, it cuts short the duration of the illness in many cases more quickly than by lulling the ipatient into passivity with opiates and sedatives. Especially is this true in cases of stomach irritability of both children and adults. Many nervous paroxysms are abbreviated by ah emetic, which usually has a quiet reactionary effect. In hysterical "spells" the drug emetine has a better indication than morphine. Lobelia is an old-fash-ioned drug that will break up asthmatic and other paroxysmal attacks without jeopardising the patient in any way. The emetic is safe, we are told, and conservative. , NUTS AS A COMPT/KXTON DIET. Dr. Thomas Allen, an American physician, lost twelve pounds during the sixty days that he ate nothing but peanuts (arachis hypogoea) and drank nothing save, lemonade. He declared that he felt much better than he did when he began the diet. He also said:—" Special points of virtue in the peanut that I have found are several. The peanut is the greatest cosmetic in the world. It makes the skin smooth .md soft. Women should go crazy about it. My skin was as rough as an emery wheel when I began to»eat peanuts; now it is as smooth as a baby's. The peanut is not an ideal food, but it is the richest single article of diet ,in the world. I did not like them at first, but now I almost like them, and intend to eat some peanuts every day for the remainder of my life. I think that I have'eaten about a pound a day since I began my experiment; that would be sixty pounds of peanuts in all." PEOPLE DON'F"wALK ENOUGH. There are not many people nowadays who can walk any distance at all without feeling used up. Walking is becoming less necessary each year, for public vehicles are continually increasing In number. The children of this generation do not walk as much as did the children of the last generation. Each future generation will walk less than the one that preceded it, until the time will probably come when people will find it impossible to walk, except in a very limited way. And who knows but the time will finally come when people can't walk at all? Stranger things than that have happened. It is an inevitable law of nature that the part of the body which is not used in time becomes useless. To-day all of us who are moderately well ought to be able to walk many miles without; experiencing any sense of exhaustion, but how many of us can do this? Yet if we would but walk more we should find that we should grumble less about headaches and indigestion and blues and bad feelings generally. Walking is claimed to be the very best tonic that can be presented for exhausted brains, weakened muscles and worn-out nerves; it strengthens the digestive organs, drives the blood away from the tired brain, and is one of the best remedies for nervousness. ALCOHOL AND MARKSMANSHIP. The Bavarian War Ministry has just issued a preliminary report on tests made to determine the effect of the use of alcoholic beverages on marksmanship. Squads of men are alternately kept abstinent for a week, and during the next; week allowed definite amounts of alcohol Already over 10,000 shots have been made under these conditions, with the result that the drinking men made better scores while firing singly than did those belonging to the squad which had been kept abstinent. In field and volley firing by companies, however, the sections which ■had been entirely abstemious attained slightly better results than their stimulated comrades. These results are somewhat at variance with those obtained some time ago in the Swiss army, which we believe demonstrated that the nonalcoholic soldiers were more reliable shots than the drmEers. HEALTH VALUE OP PURE WATER. "People do not drink enough water to keep healthy," a well-known authority tells us. " The numerous cases of stomach trouble, kidney and bladder diseases, and rheumatism are mainly due to the fact that the drinking of water, nature's greatest medicine, has been neglected." When requested for a prescription for the cure of kidney trouble, the answer was:"You must make the kidneys do their work; they are the filters of the blood. They must be made to strain out of the blood the waste matter and acids that cause rheumatism.; the urine must he neutralised so that it will no longer be a source of irritation to the bladder; and. most of all, you must keep these acids from forming in the stomach. This is the cause of stomach trouble and poor digestion." For these conditions be would suggest a prescription, but he adds that any prescription would be useless without attention to the drinking of water.