TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1928, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR. Training for Motherhood. This week I want to talk to the young women —the girls between the ages of leaving school and getting married. I want them to realise their own importance in the world. Soon they will have reached the age when they will have husbands and homes of their own. These few years between school and marriage are very precious. Much of the time must.be spent, in the daily work, in earning a living. But lam anxious to stir up the girls into thinking of the future, to arouse in them an intense desire to make themselves fit for their future duties. Knowledge of mothercraft, of housekeeping, of cooking, and above all. care of children, will never come by instinct. All this knowledge must be learnt by painstaking care. I spend my life in trying to prevent illness, and I want to have as my allies in the fight all the young, developing women who will shortly take their proud place as the mothers of the sons of the Empire. I wring my hands in sorrow at the amount of avoidable illness, at the hundreds of deaths that need never have taken place if only the mothers had had a little more training, a little more commonsense, a little more knowledge. Before 1 was allowed to call myself a doctor I was compelled by the State to work for five years, and then to pass difllcult examinations to test my fitness for my great responsibilities. And now I am appealing to my friends the young women to work in order that they may feel fit to shoulder their responsibilities. If I am to make any headway at all in preventing illness I must have the mothers on my side. Ignorance of Mothers. The ignorance of the mothers of the present day is appalling. I should like every girl to join a continuation class in order to learn about the management of a home. It is altogether wrong to let people get ill first and then send for the doctor; the illness should be prevented in the first place. We write in our copy books that prevention is better than cure, and now it is time to put the maxim into practice. What chance has a baby who is wrongly clothed, wrongly fed, badly cared.for? If you listen you will hear the little voices of the children of the future calling out to you and asking you to see that they are born healthy and strong. You ought to understand the ill-important laws of nature. Ignorance is not innocence. The Way to Health. The best way to become a healthy woman is to spend your girlhood in acquiring a store of health. Cultivate a clean body and a clean mind. Be in the fresh air all you can, sleep with the window open, clean your teeth twice a day, and have the decayed ones stopped, keep your skin pure and healthy by frequent washing, see that your .habits are regular, go to bed in good time,, and eat your food slowly. If you wish to be beautiful, remember that there is nothing so becoming as health. Fill your mind with useful knowledge, learn housekeeping, domestic economy! cooking and sewing. Make nice friends, beware of companionship with the thriftless and the careless. When you have mental and physical health you will possess one of the most precious jewels in the world —self-respect. A young woman who has gained the priceless treasure of self-respect will have done good not only to herself, but to all around her. Help Yourselves. Now, young ladies, you must realise that your health depends very largely on your own efforts; you are not to sit down and moan and groan because you are anaemic; you are to bestir yourselves, learn about health and defy the demon of disease. Be as charming as you can; make the best of yourselves, you have a right to enjoy your youth. Develop all the good qualities within you to their utmost limit, and eradicate the bad ones, and when you have made yourself a fine, healthy, blooming, flourishing, welleducated, sensible, laughing, happy girl, if you marry the wrong kind of man I will never forgive you. When Sending for the Doctor. When you send for the doctor to attend an urgent case you must send a careful message, explaining the case as well as you can. You must not put your head out of the window and call to the boy to run for the doctor. It is very awkward for the doctor when he asks the panting boy what is the matter to receive the answer “I dunno.” He may rush off with everything for a broken leg, and find it is a baby in a fit; or he may take the things to sew up a large wound and discover it is a case of measles. The few moments spent in giving the messenger careful instructions are well spent; it saves time in the end, especially if the doctor has to go back for some instrument he never thought he would want. Apart from urgent cases, you will be showing great kindness and consideration, which will be much appreciated, if you send for the doctor in the morning. Do not let him pass your dooi’ twice in the day and then call him out after dinner when he is at the end of a hard day’s work.