TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 October 1928, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

CHILDREN AND SWEETS. (By a Family Doctor). I have no objection to children eating sweets; sweets are, or ought. to be, made of sugar. lam not standing up for the variety made of plaster of Paris and cochineal. Chocolate and sugar are quite healthy. But the sweets must be eaten at the proper time. I had a quarrel once with a man who stood outside the school door with a barrow of sweets. The children spent their halfpennies on cheap and nasty sweets, which they sucked on the way home. Their little stomachs being full of plaster of Paris or sawdust, or whatever it was. the sweets contained, they found their appetite for mother’s nice dinner gone. They only pecked at the good food. Sweets should be of a good variety and should be oaten at the end of a meal. Candies on an empty stomach are bad, and cause digestive troubles. The stomach, like every other part of the body, requires rest; putting odd bits of food into that over-worked organ between meals only irritates it and disturbs its action. Men strike for an eight-houi’ day, but they take very good care that their wives and their stomachs work as long as their lordships demand. Whitewash and Geraniums.

I have now got a craze for whitewash and geraniums. You know that people cannot be healthy unless they have bright homes. Whitewash and geraniums. You must have light in your rooms to give you health and cheerfulness; the light can be reflected from wall to wall if only the surface is white; dirt and blackness absorbs the rays, white reflects them and brightens the back alleys and backyards. Whitewash and geraniums. Have you ever noticed how dark the room seems when the white tablecloth is removed? If a ray of light can be reflected off three walls it does the work of three rays. And flowers! Do let us have a little brightness! Father’s face wants washing, mother’s face is pale with overwork, the children’s faces are anaemic from want of fresh air, but a geranium’s face is rosy and red with health. Whitewash and geraniums. Please have the outside of the house whitewashed to look nice and clean, and then put your geraniums in the windows. I have got whitewash and geraniums on the brain. My wife just looked in as I was writing this and asked me what I would like for supper, and I said “Whitewash and geraniums.” But never mind, I know I am right, and I want to Walk down your street gay with whitewash and geraniums. A Chain of Thought. What do we mean by a cure of a disease? We can only answer that by experiment. A scientific man may sit down in an armchair with a pipe and .think out a course to adopt. He may follow a chain of thought; malaria obcurs in damp countries, damp countries encourage the growth of mosquitoes, mosauitoes bite human beings; no mosquitoes, no malaria; let us follow out the theory. He starts on this hypothesis and works it all out. Finally he publishes a paper in a medical journal, and other doctors repeat and confirm his observations. His experiments are multiplied a thousandfold all over the world, and in the end we find ourselves justified in announcing that if we could ex- ' terminate mosquitoes we should have found a method of preventing malaria. The Credulous Public. We have found that appendicitis can be cured by removing the appendix. We have found that rupture can be cured by selecting suitable cases for operation. We can definitely assert that blindness can be cured by removing the cataract that causes it. But please note that in all these instances the proof lies in producing the cases. You must always demand the list of cases before you give your approval to a supposed cure. Now and then we find extravagant advertisements announcing that cancer can be cured. If the British public were not so stupid in medical matters it would be a simple matter to show up impostors. But the great B.P. do love being gulled. A man puts his picture on the wall, hires a hall, and they all believe him whatever he says. He often ends up in gaol, but that does not matter to the simple-minded folk.

The Test of Sincerity.

The test of sincerity is so clear and easy to understand. You take a man who says he has a cure for cancer to an infirmary, and you say to him, “Here are fifty cases of cancer, cure them.” If he cures them we shall make him a duke, give him an old-age pension, introduce him to the Lord Mayor, and proceed to adopt his cure in every civilised country in the world. But no one has ever accepted the challenge. Give the advertisers a chance to tackle the fifty cancers, and as they die off one by one under his care he will forfeit your confidence. We are slowly compiling information and knowledge which will one day bear fruit. We may live to see a cure in this generation. We must go patiently on with our spade-work; we must collect information from all countries and all climes. But until the day comes I must try and protect you from the wiles of unscrupulous quacks. They promise faithfully that they will cure cancer; all you have to do is to send them ten shillings; one mug a day gives a decent livelihood. The Matter of Boots. Boots should be made straight along the inner border. Please put your child’s foot or your own on a piece of paper; trace the outline of the foot. Then take the shoe or the boot and place it as accurately as you can over the tracing of the foot. Mark out the outline of the boot with a pencil of a different colour. If you still think that the square foot can go into a pointed boot I give it up.