HOW TO GET WELL.

Franklin Times, Volume 14, Issue 200, 9 November 1925, Page 8

HOW TO GET WELL.

ESPECIALLY IN SUMMER. SOME USEFUL HINTS. Such is the natural perversity of our climate that few things would appear to be more effective dispersers of the sort of delightful weather we have recently been enjoying than such precautionary notes as these. I trust, therefore, that should the sun have retired by the time they appear in print, that my readers will believe that I wrote them with the best intentions. Hot weather affects different people differently. To a happy few it seems like the opening of a cage in which their vitality had hitherto been imprisoned. They thrive on it, and feel unusually alive and fit. To others, it is the reverse, and their complaints against ihe heat arc loud and lamentable. . \

Heat waves are such rare to these islands that they always seem to take us by surprise, and such precautions as we may take against them are usually of the emergency order, and not always either effective or wholesome. The townsman not unnaturally tends to feel the oppressive effects of great heat more, than the country man does. This is due not onlv to the indoor nature of his routine, but to its fixed hours. The office worker cannot transfer his working hours to the cool of the morning or evening. Nor has he quite the same latitude in the matter of dressing to suit the temperature as the country man has. Yet even so, he may do much to adapt himself to hot weather conditions without unduly interfering with either custom or convention.

Clothing and Food. It stands to reason, of course, that summer clothing should be light and loose. And in this matter most women (o-day need very little advice. In the mater of food and drink, equally commonsensc principles apply. When we remember that one of the chief purposes of food we eat is to maintain the bodily heat, we shall realise that less food is needed in hot weather than in cold, and that rather different food should be taken. The, starchy 'foods are great heat producers. We shall be wise, therefore, to indulge our natural taste for green vegetables, fresh fruits, lighter meats, and so on. When we remember, too. that in hot weather particularly, one of the chief purposes served by the liquid we drink is to keep the 'body cool, we shall realise, why it is that the heat makes us thirsty. We should drink, therefore, plenty of water, either plain or flavoured with lemon. Weak freshly-brewed lea is also a good thirst quencher, but stronger drinks of the alcoholic order are not to be recommended. • A tendency lo constipation in hot weather is not infrequent. This should be guarded against. It is doubly important to keep the skin of the body clean in hot. summer weather. The- perspiration of j the skin is not only a body cooling process, hut a waste remover. That is to say. the sweating of the skin is also a sort of scavenging. And although this process goes on winter and summer, in the winter it is all but imperceptible, but in summer relatively copious.

Sun Baths. ."final word about the sun. Quite apart from the heal of the sun, its rays have other properties which, at certain seasons of the year, constitute a danger. It is not the heat of the sun alone that causes sunstroke. hut the action of these other rays combined with heat. And the head and the hack of the neck, where the spinal column begins, arc peculiarly susceptible lo these rays. Wide-brimmed bais should always be worn in the heat of the summer sun. not only to shade the eyes, hut to protect, these other vulnerable parts. Pun baths, beneficial as they undoubtedly are when taken in suitable conditions, should not he indulged in indiscriminately by persons to | wlmm they are a novelty. One needs a good deal of acclimatisation | to become immune from (lie possibly . harmful effects of blazing summer ' sunshine, and many a headache, or' otherwise unaccountable attack of; dyspepsia, may he traced In the ef- | I'ects of undue exposure to the sun.— . Weekly Scotsman. j