Health Hints.

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 1420, 18 February 1911, Page 7 (Supplement)

Health Hints.

SOME SIGNIFICANT PAINS.

Many sick folks —and a majority of these men —are disappointed when the doctor concentrates his attention upon other symptoms and practically ignores their eager descriptions of the pain they suffer. What to them is unique torture is to the physician but one feature (often unimportant) in a case he is trying to recognise. Sometimes, however, patient and physician agree in finding pain the striking point about a particular disease; and then the ache is usually characterised by a Mikadoish ingenuity of agony. Four such significant pains occur in the chest, and inflict punishment which terrifies the victim. Pneumonia, pleurisy, pleurodynia, and angina pectoris induce them; and since three of these diseases are common, while all of them increase in gravity the longer they Tun unidentified. I shall endeavour (writes a medical man in a, Home Journal) to sketch a recognisable portrait of each. If one of them appears in the house a doctor must be summoned without delay.

Pneumonia sets in suddenly. There is a marked shivering fit, followed by feverish sensations such as headache, backache, and hurried breathing. A sense of oppression is felt in the chest, and generally an. acute pain stabs the side when a long breath is attempted. The face is flushed a bright red and the lips are crimson. In bad cases a duskier, bluer hue is seen. A short, hacking cough aggravates the pain and brings up a sticky phlegm of a yellowish, brownish, or red colour. This spit adheres in a characteristic way to any vessel into which it is expectorated. A thermometer shows the temperature to be 102deg. F., or more.

Pleurisy exhibits the same pain on coughing or drawing a deep breath, and the onset of the disease has the same characters —shiver, general aching, jsome fever. Flushing of the face' is not so common as in pneumonia, and some cases present a certain degree of pallor. There is generally, but not always, a little cough, and if phlegm is brought up it is white or colourless, never the rusty yellow or red seen in pneumonia! Occasionally when the palm of the hand is placed over the seat of pain a creaking or soft, rasping sensation may be felt. Breathing is rapid; but there is not the industrious hurry noticed in pneumonic patients:

THE VALUE OF FKOTT. In his speech at the opening, of the recent Colonial Fruit Show, Sir Edward Grey warmly upheld the wholesome qualities of fruit. He said that if _he were asked how much fruit might be eaten with advantage to health, he should say the quantity need only be limited by one's cubic capacity. This ought to be good news to a host of small boys whose natural instinct in summer and autumn seems to hid them make for the orchard. It is true that some disorders of digestion and bowels can often be traced to fruit-eating, but as a rule it is only "because the fruit was not in a fit condition for use; it was either unripe or over-ripe and in a state of decomposition. This is not giving the fruit a fair trial. Then, again, there are certain people who cannot eat everything with impunity. There are people who cannot digest lemon, and it is certainly mot wise to let yoati£ children eat freely of any stone frait. In many cases of dyspepsia an orari.2,s eaten will do wonders; grapes and apples are equally good. INGROWING TOENAILS. According to a foreign medical contemporary, every case of ingrowing toenial can be cured in five days by the free application of dry powdered alum. No pain attends this form of treatment, and the destruction of tie diseased tissue results in the formation of a hard resistant non-sensitive bed for the nail, with a cure of the ingrowing tendency. The non-toxicy of the alum, its easy application, and the good results obtained from it, render it the treatment of choice, at least in cases where ■no operative measures are contemplated.

A soap and water fomentation 33 first applied for 24 hours, and then the -alum is applied to the space between the nail and its bed; a tampon of cottonwool is next placed en the alum, and the applications repeated daily. Suppuration rapidly ceases, the parts dry up, and pain h ad. discomfort vanish almost at once. The toenails can in most cases be prevented from growing in if, in cutting, they are slightly hollowed in the centre—that is, slightly crescentshaped, with the hollow of the crescent in the middle.

Pain from the ingrowing toenail can be relieved, by treating with a mixture of one ounce of chloride of zinc and one drachm each of muriatic and nitric acid; mix them thoroughly and apply one drop daily to the affected toe. NATURE'S LUNG TONIC. In walking, girls, avoid mincing steps, but do not go to the other extreme and stride. Step firmly on the foot and avoid adopting a hasty step in the ordinary way, so that your breathing is not affected detrimentally by your gait. Health exercises and dancing lessons help to give a graceful carriage, together with an independent, dignified tread. The lungs are affected considerably by the way in which the chest is he 13. They should be allowed free expansion, and should not be cramped by a bad carriage. The lungs, with many women, are not given a free chance of expanding to the full. They ar* expected to be strong, and to do goo-j oontr noted chest aad '' ~ - '•'"> impede them. exercises, taken ■\v\r. arc a fine tonic for the lungs.