BLOOD PRESSURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 238, 8 October 1934, Page 8

BLOOD PRESSURE.

FASHIONABLE DISEASE

WHY FRENCH GESTICULATE

AND SCOTS TAKE WHISKY

The fashionable disease of the moment is blood pressure, declared Dr. Leonard Williams at the New Health Society'.* Summer School at Malvern. Although it was called a disease, it was' really a mechanical fact, because without blood pressure wo could have no existence. "The typical high b'ood pressure jxn--son," he continued, "is the ba d fat man of SO. who has never had indigestion in his life, and who if you tell him lie should not cat and drink so much, will say that those damned doctors don't know what they're talking about. But one day he bends ('.own to tie up his bootlace, and he has a stroke. "There is nothing relincd or nice about high blood pressure, although it is so fashionab e. It is due to gross overfeeding and under-exerciec, and overindulgence generally. "The opposite to that ty|>c of man is (lie tall, thin, cadaverous person with low blood pressure, whose one desire is to lie town, and who bates doing anything which necessitates his being upright. "Ho is really 110 more refined than the fat man. because he has probably been eating and drinking thing.? which poison him just as much as the fat man has. "The pleasure we get when we see a tliri lor 011 the cinema or 011 the stage is really high blood pressure. A loud sudden noise sends up your blood pressure, so that blood may be furnished to the extremities to enable the body to respond to the primitive instincts of light or flight. "That is why the French gesticulate when they arc excited. The blood pressure is raised. Kxtra b'ood is pumped to the extremities, but, instead of lighting or running away, the French gesticulate. On the other hand, the Soot mrrclv savs 'Och aye' and goes and has a glass of whisky. The reason you get pleasure out of music is also because your blood pressure is raised." Dr. Williams advised those who wished lo avoid high blood pressure not to make a fetish of exercise. A three-mile walk every day 011 the level was quite enough for most pople.