MEDICAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 8 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

WORK AND REST.

MINIMUM FOOD QUESTION. ILL-EFFECTS OF WORRY.

(By PERITUS.)

There's nothing on earth which keeps its youth—except perhaps a tree and a truth; to everything comes without a doubt a certain time when it must wear out. The wearing out of the human and other living bodies is a contradictory process, because the wearing is, at the same time, constructive and protective. The destruction of living tissues by wear causes replacement of the worn and wasted parts, and the attempt to avoid wear by rest defeats its own. object. A constaut exercise of most, if not all, parts of the body, and the avoidance of stagnation is necessary for health. The body constantly demands new material and in the early life the new material causes an increase of tissue, building up and exceeding the wear and waste. The period of balance when increase and waste are equal is not definitely fixed, and a very careful judgment is required to know when the limitation of food and modification of exercise should bo practised. An excess or deficiency of either begets disease, and in this lies a problem for each one of us.

Body and Mind. The Jews and Roman Catholics have made periods of fasting a part of their religion, and results have proved the wisdom of the benefits derived. An old doctor, who was one of my medical teachers, made every Sunday a day of rest and fasting. His chief exercise was in the saddle, and he was a free and rapid pedestrian. He lived in good health—to be a hundred. The body and mind appear to react differently to pressure of work. The overworked body rebels, rests, recovers and goes on comfortably; the overworked mind may give no emphatic warning, and yet break down. "Take no thought for the morrow, for to-morrow will take care of itself," seems a warning against worry, fear and anxiety. The control of your own life can be partial only, and assisting in the troubles of others is far less wearing than fighting for your own hand. A difficulty seen far off is usually worse than the obstacle of to-day, and the anticipated dreadful happening mav never come. Ido not think it is hard work, or bad feeding which gives that quickly-recognised strained look to the faces of many of the unemployed. It is not the present which oppresses them so much a s the future. "What about the wife? What about the children? How shall we manage to get on without this, that or the other?" The mind goes grinding on this useless grit of questioning, and in a mental treadmill exercises, and to no purpose. A thousand outside influences are at work undermining self reliance and mental peace. The prescription of the small farm plan is, for these cases, the best possible. There is a circumscribed environment cut out of the great world, and the daily problems and questionings are smaller and less urgent. The body can bo built up and the mind rested. There is a method of escape from wear within reach of everybody which the monks and nuns discovered many years ago, and which is a part of all Christian religions, wherein proportionate work and rest are always recognised.

How the Poor Live,

My weekly English medical journal has published six columns of condensed reports upon cost of living, rents and food of the working people at Home. Although conditions hero are a little different there is much in these reports of interest to us. In the first place the Ministry of Labour has decided that 17 per cent only of the weekly wage should be paid as rent, but the weekly budgets of the unemployed show over 31 °per cent is paid in house rent. Twentytwo families having £1 10/5 per week each, paid 9/6 in rent, and an average of 2/10J in food for each number of each family. The English authorities have endeavoured to adjust the food in

proportions of food values and instruct housekeepers how to make the best and most suitable weekly purchases. For energy they recommend cheese, eggs, fish, meat and milk, for "protection" (Vitamins) salads, vegetables, fruits, liver and fat fish. Among the cheaper foods they class flour, oatmeal, bread, dripping, margarine, treacle, sugar, jam, bacon, dried fruit. In these (as generally used) the fat proportion is too low. For energy and cheapness together they say fish, milk, liver, and "imported beef and rabbit" (these last concern New Zealand). Milk is one of the most important of all foods, and plenty of skimmed milk is advised as a cheap food.

"Probably if the diet contains per person, one pint of milk per day, if cheese is partaken of freely, if one orange or one tomato or a helping of raw salad is taken daily, if loz per day of butter (or of vitaminised margarine) is given, and if some sort of fat fish, such as herring, appears in the winter menu once a week (or if in default of such fish half a tcaspoonful of cod-liver oil is taken oirce a day) the mineral matter and the vitamin content of the diet are satisfactory."

"The question is bound to arise whether butter or margarine be employed as one of the sources of fat.

Economy suggests margarine. There is the possibility that butter may be devoid of vitamin D in winter and, consequently, if butter is being relied upon as a protective food it would be best to specify butter such as New Zealand butter, which is fairly constant in

its vitamin D content. Margarine can be obtained which contains vitamins A and D, and if margarine is used such a product should bo specified. . . ."

At present cost of foods 0/3 per week per mail is put as the minimum expenditure to keep strength and health when working. One thing which lias become abundantly clcar in physiological research is that appetite, as apart from hunger, has much to do with the proper digestion, assimilation, and utilisation of food. The physiological engines of the body are "guided partly by the psychological condition of their owner. Consequently no subsistence diet, however admirable from the theoretical point of view, such as the one given, can be accepted as practical.

The daily diet of children up to five years is given as follows:—One pint of milk, the juice of orange, tomato, grape or lemon. An apple, orange, tomato; some salad or lemon juice (for older children). Two to four ounces of meat or fish, or one egg. Cod-liver oil if the butter ration is reduced. The butter being from two to four ounces per week.