TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 June 1928, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR. I want to give you a serious warning against Iho habit of taking as medicine, bottle after bottle of some alcoholic remedy. You are often persuaded by misguided friends to try such and such a remedy for depression. Many of these remedies contain alcohol, and the feeling of temporary stimulation following their administration is due to the presence of the alcohol. People who would never take brandy or whisky or even claret, and who would not. like to be seen in a, public house, take frequent doses of this alcoholic medicine, and think nq harm of it. It is well known that a taste for alcohol is readily acquired, especially by anaemic girls and young women, and the longing for alcohol is engendered by taking these so-called remedies. The practice cannot be too strpngly condemned. Some cases i have met with arc very distressing. When you find your daughters buying <i. number of bottles of drug-remedies for nervousness or depression, inquire carefully from someone who knows whether there is any alcohol in the sluff. If there is you must not allow her to rely on it for strength. Alcoholic stimulants must not bo relied on by young people for health ami vigour. It is a thoroughly bad habit.

The Effect of Alcohol. The heart is, of course, very susceptible to emotion. Anxiety makes the heart beat faster; the flutter of a beloved petticoat sends the pulse-rate up; the heart acts feebly in times of depression and misery. Therefore we ought, for the sake of our hearts, to maintain a. cheerful and steady temperament. A man who flies into a temper over trifles a. dozen times a day throws a heavy strain on the heart; it is a. very expensive habit to keep a bad temper. When the bloodstream is sluggish the whole body feels out. of gear. A healthy, brisk action of the heart has a most encouraging effect, on the mind and spirits. This is the secret of the cheering effect. of alcohol; it makes the heart beat faster. The only trouble is that the heart, having obliged you by beating fast for an hour or two, demands a period of quiet and rest to make up for it afterwards, and the after-effects lets the man down to deeper level than he started from before ho took the alcohol. Then he wants a larger dose of alcohol to pick him up again, and the larger dose afterwards lets him down lower still. The stomach, which received the food as it is swallowed, is quite close to the heart, and when it is distended with wind the heart is pressed against it and its action disturbed, hence- the treatment of palpitation is to pay no attention to the heart but to direct the treatment to the digestion. In these cases look after the stomach, and the heart will take care of itself.

The Intestines and the Appendix.

The intestine is a tube like a hosepipe, many feet long. It differs from a. hose-pipe in that it is not the same size all the way. Near the end it gets larger, and where the small and large intestine join there is a blind outgrowth forming a. branch, and there the simile of a hose-pipe breaks down. If the contents of the intestines had a. straight, course to run all the way, some of our medical and surgical complications would be nonexistent. The blind pouch is a. stumbling block. The food has to find its way in and out like a lot of people walking down a blind alley and having to turn round and force their way back. In herbivorous animals, like the rabbit, the blind alley is very large; in man it is much smaller. At the end of the blind pouch is the appendix which is so often inflamed. Particles of food and germs and debris of various sorts get into the appendix and cannot get out. They begin by causing a slight catarrh then a more serious inflammation, until finally an abscess is formed and an operation is necessary to save life. A healthy appendix gives no trouble. If your teeth are bad and your food is mixed with the discharge that, comes from the septic teeth, an absces will develop. If you are constipated for three days, allowing the inside to grow stagnant, like a pond of dirty water, you are once again asking for trouble. Even if you remove the constipation by a violent purge you will torment your insides and leave them in a bad temper. Strange that all the excitement, of reformers is spent on drink! There is far more unhappiness due to the evils of eating. Let a man drink a glass of beer too much, and he is hauled off to the police cells. Another man may take a whole dish of food too much, and the law takes no notice. If a man’s home is wrecked by his indigestion and consequent ill-temper, he is allowed to go scot free. Shocking, I cal! it!

Causes of Appendicitis Preventable.

What is the punishment for appendicitis. I should like to know. Nothing! There are no societies for abolishing appendicitis. You would not get one member to join. And yet what a. lot of sadness would be saved 1.0 this old world and the people in il if indigestion weiie abolished! Do take a little more interest in your own anatomy. It is disgraceful the way you neglect every rule of hygiene. Appendicitis is due to bad food badly cooked and badly chewed by bhd teeth. And all the causes are. prevcntible. It used to be my boast that I would semi appendicitis flyingno more operations, no more beds occupied by folk that, ought to be at work. Now I am getting disheartened. You do not want, to be free from indigestion; you prefer to keep your old gobbling habits and pay the price.

Cats Carry Infection

No household is really complete without a cat: but there is one place where pussy is not. wanted, and that is in the sick room. In cases of infectious disease it is dangerous to allow the cat in the room, as it has been proved that cats can convey diphtheria and influenza. The mysterious conveyance of a disease from one child Io another when apparently every precaution has been taken to prevent, the spread of infection has sometimes been explained by the wanderings of a cat. Going into the sick room and getting its thick coal covered in germs, it. goes downstairs. or into another house, where some unsuspecting child hugs it and catches the disease.