TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 November 1927, Page 3

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR. Common-sense Methods. You will find the following rules will help to cure constipation. Please do not make the 1 ' initial mistake of thinking you can cure yourself without taking trouble and care. You will need patience and perseverance. Most of you are so lazy that you will take no trouble at all; you just buy a box of pills, and that is all. Of course, in the end you are worse than, when you started, and the result of the endless boxes of pills is that you are permanently constipated, and will never be cured; you will always need the pills, and in increasing numbers. At the age of forty or fifty you will regret not having followed common-sense methods.

Some Rules to Health.

First of all, have your grinding teeth put in order; if you cannot bite your food, and consequently swallow it in lumps, your inside will be put out of gear at once, and constipation will result. Eat very slowly; cut your meat up on your plate before you put it in your mouth; take ten minutes longer over your meals than anybody else; get up in the morning in good time, so that you do not have to hurry over your breakfast. Brown bread is better for you than white. Do not start whining and telling me you hate brown bread; you must eat it, and you will soon prefer it to the white variety. Porridge for breakfast is good for you, if only your good wife would learn how to make porridge. Tea is bad; take only one cup of tea a day, and that very weak. Tea on waking, tea at eleven, tea for dinner, tea for tea, and an extra cup because Mrs Brown popped in at half-past five, and tea. for supper—all this is the best plan I know for promoting constipation. Anaemic girls keep themselves ill by tea. Cocoa made with milk is worth the money, because it is real nourishment. Regular Habits. Well, then you must observe regular habits. The insides learn regularity in a very short time. Every part of the body is subject to regular rules. Take the brain as an instance. It learns to expect sleep at a certain hour; if that hour is over-stepped it is quite possible that sleep will desert the pillow for many hours, even though the brain is really tired; it was the interruption of the regularity that upset the sleep-mechanism. If you respond to the call of nature at ten o’clock one day and four o’clock the next, and not at all on the next day, you are not behaving fairly to your body; you are slowly but surely falling into the clutches of the patent pillman.

Take More Exercise.

If you lead a sitting-down life in an office, you must make up for the unhealthy inaction of work-time by walking as much as possible when you get off. This is important. Perhaps you might walk to work instead of taking a tram, or you might get out at the stop before the one you live near, and ask your wife to meet you there in the evening, and have a walk home together. If you are able to join a tennis club you arc lucky. Play any game that shakes up your liver and gives your muscles .something to do. How about learning to swim in the public baths? That is a pleasant exercise. You must think out some form of exercise that you like and will stick to; it is useless to buy a pair of dumb-bells and then let the dust settle on them, or use them as doorstops. What form of exercise you choose is of no great consequence; each one myst choose for himself. All I insist on, is that you shall not allow your abdominal muscles to grow lax and flabby from disuse, and I cannot allow you to pile up lumps of fat all over your body. Lumps of fat around the heart and in .the liver and all round the intestines, and on all the limbs, are a source of weakness and a predisposing cause of constipation. Keep Cheerful.

I am not sure whether a melancholy disposition causes constipation, or whether constipation causes a melancholy disposition. Possibly there is some truth in both sides of the question. Anyway, try and keep cheerful as part of the treatment; it helps wonderfully. If you laugh, it forms a splendid exercise for the diaphragm and all the abdominal muscles that play such an important part in the factions of the liver and bowels. A Case for Glasses. The styes that appear at the edge of the eyelids are generally a sign that the sight is weak and that, eyeglasses are needed to relieve the strain. Do not be mistaken because you can see the church clock quite well; eye-strain is brought about by looking at close work, not by looking at distant objects. You can go for a walk and look at the distant views for hours without getting eye-strain, but if you go to a picture gallery you will have a headache in half an hour. Pictures are nearer than the landscape views of the real countryside, and the muscles of the eye have to be contracted to adjust the sight. It is difficult to convince some people that they need glasses. It is the slight defects in sight that cause irritation of the eyes after some .hours of sewing or reading, and. the styes that form will not be cured by ointment as long as the true cause is neglected. 111-treating the Lungs.

You can never have large ideas and a love of liberty if you breathe stuffy air. The air that comes out of your lungs has been partially used up, when you breathe it a second time it is still further robbed of its freshness; and when for ten solid hours you inhale the same air over and over again the air in the room is vitiated and impure. If only your lungs could speak! When your stomach is in need of food it speaks in no uncertain voice; but when the lungs are calling for fresh air their voice cannot always be understood by-the people. Nevertheless, the lungs do speak: that headache and weary feeling, that sallow complexion and pale skin, those dark circles under the eyes are signs that more fresh air is needed. The voice of the lungs falls on unheeding ears, and the voice of common-sense has to be called in aid.