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Evening Star, Issue 14307, 4 March 1910, Page 7

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SOUTH DUNEDIN INFECTED. THE CURSE OF~TH.E COMFORTER. In view of tho fad that Dr Truby King demonstrated to his audience last night that the presence of adenoids in a. child's mouth is often a precursor (and always a predisposing cause) to tuberculosis, ths most significant statement for us in his lecture was one, based on the observation of two physicians, that .•>» ytr cent, nj the children on the Flat suffer from adenoid*. An adenoid is an abnormal growth of tissue blocking' -the air-way behind the nostrils. Children suffering from this obstruction wake at night from horrible dreams of suffocation (which is actually threatened), filled with dread. They become etuntcd, narrow-chested, vacuouslooking because of the necessity of keeping their mouths open, and actually vacuous and weak in intelligence because they are starved of air. They are fit soil for that foil disease consumption, which Bunvan called "the captain of tho men of Death."

I The text of Dr King's lecture was this : I Adenoids and consumption are prevent- ! ible; therefore, why aro they not prevented ? His masterly analysis of the eubI ject showed how they may be prevented ; ' how such a diseneo as consumption, which annually accounts for 5,000,000 lives (a London of people), may be exterminated. We shall dip into Dr King's bag, and select from the good things, as space allows. I A human being (says the doctor) can 1 live without food for throe weeks (or more); he can live without water for three days; he can live without air for three minutes. And yet it is of air that we starve ourselvos and our children ! Speaking of cradles covered with muslins and the pretty things that the average mother loves to adorn her child's bed with, and tho big draped hcods : If you ! were more concerned about your baby than about its clothes, which I regret to say you are not . . . you would know that*it is lving in a tub of carbonic acid. ' . . . When the temperature is in the neighborhood of 80 degrees, the foul air hangs like a black cloud over the baby. It is a veritable Black Hole of Calcutta. Nurses habitually have the idea that the best thing to do with the child after the bath is to toast its toes before the fire, lying on the floor. One hundred thousand cubic feet of air are streaming along the floor to supply tho fire per hour. The baby is literally pelted with bullets of air. . . . What people do with their brains, [ do not know, unless they use them up in getting what is known as a modern education. Rabies do not go "on the burst " ; they are strictly anionable to what you would have them do. Babies do not die; they are killed.

| And now the remedies. Dr King proI coeds to show haw, with plenty of air, j proper food -properly yiveii, due exercise, children shduld never suffer from adenoids. Thev are " strictly prevent'ible." i Firstly, the baby must not lie with its mother, nor in a cradle 'km'gside her. The window must be open, and a proper current of air contrived between window and fireplace, or door, and the mother must lie on one side of the stream of air. the child on the other (protected from direct impact by a screen if necessary). Again, the bit; hoed of the ordinary perambulator was merely a well for carbonic acid gas, at the bottom of which the child lay. The doctor's illustration showed a special hood, with adjustable blinds, invented by Lady Plunket. On the question of food the lecturer insisted upon the necessity of something more than pap food, so that by hard chewing the teeth might be kept ijood and the jaw properly formed. With evciy curse at his disposal he cursed the "dummy," which led to the narrowing of the jaws (as the illustrations showed), the reduction in size of the nasal cavity, the reduction of the air-way, and malformations and adenoids. Another illustration showed a b:ibv half-asleep sucking its milk through tho "long-tubed bottle, which the lecturer described as a "sewer"; and yet another showed a baby faking its food properly, the nurse holding the bottle at the riglit, angle, the child kicking and working its limbs in the way it should. j " Man was never meant to bo the inferior of tho microbe," says J)r Tru'oy I King finely. "Jf we train mothers to j give the bain' proper air. food, and exercise, especially exercise to shape the mouth, ' jaws, and teeth, instead of letting the | milk pa-.sively dribble down the throat, laud instead of perversely moulding the ! growing structures in deformity by the of the comforter and other pernicious habits, we need have little anxiety as to tuberculosis or anv other such disease."

Let us, in conclusion, quote, as did 1); King, from Ihe speech of tlic Hon. John Burns. M.P., at the Loudon Tuberculosis Exhibition, 1909, on the causes of consumption :

Now, I come to another practical remedy—that is, the abolition' of the eonifoitcr and soother. This is a very serious thing. The bomb, the pistol, and dynamite have killed their scores, but I believe the comforter has killed its tens of thousands of .Jitlle children. . . . I am told this : that it is a special cause of bad teeth. Later on it means impaired digestion, and the relationship of impaired digestion to consumption is a very .serious one. I express it ns my opinion as a layman that to a jrreat extent the comforter or soother is responsible in many cases for

adenoids. 1 would endure tho charge of being <i bureaucrat with pleasure and with equanimity if with one order I could make tho comforter a public nuisance iind .schedule it as a dangerous instrument.

A large audience heard the doctor in the Hums Hall. The Hon. J. V,. Callan introduced the lecturer, and Dr Ogston proposed the vote of thanks.