ICES FOR HEALTH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3129, 7 August 1922, Page 7

ICES FOR HEALTH.

(By a Physician).

The practice of eating ice-cream has only become common during the last two decades. Before it was the habit tor the general public to frequent restaurants and clubs, ice-cream was confined mainly to the classes who patronised the Italian street vendor or employed an expensive chef. The best knowledge of ice-cream making lias come from the United States, where every form of frozen food appears to be consumed without any serious deleterious results. Since there has not been any epidemic of illness from eating ices there has not been any immediate necessity for scientific investigation, of the general effect on health of frozen foods. J edging by the way conversation turns, there appears to be an impression abroad in the minds of some that wo are internally much hotter in the summer than in the winter. A little experiment with a clinical thermometer will soon prove the contrary. Blood heat is more or less normal in health all the year round. It is the surface of the skin which feels the heat so intensely. That is why we are i color in some colors and some materials than in others. It is all a question of radiation. In the winter we Jicff) to warm the cooler atmosphere, hut in a warm kind of weather the atmosphere does not need our assistance, and wc do not find it so easy to rid ourselves of body heat. The heart in consequence has a little more work to do. Having decided that the digestive tract te not so l intensely hot we can banish the idea, that ice in summer is any more dangerous than it is in winter. The chief attraction about an ice in summer is that it'is a means of conveying liquid, and owing to the skin just now carrying off so much o f the water of them body, the geenral organism needs liquid in considerable quantities. Also in the summer the mouth has a tendency to get dry and the salivary glands sometimes do not respond to the sight of food and drink as rapidly as they should. The appearance of an ice is usually so attractive that the mouth waters—that is to say, the sahvairv glands get busy. Since the whole of digestion depends on the activity or these glands it may lie concluded that the sight of an ice alone has considerable list's. If it is sipped the enjoyment is continued, and there seems very little reason to fear any dangerous result. The body lends itself to adaptation by slow absorption.