TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 August 1930, Page 9

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR

HEART TROUBLES.

Wc cannot live without our hearts, that is clear; but we can carry on quite happily even when the heart is slightly affected; the heart need not be in absolutely perfect order. Experience shows us that the heart develops stronger muscle and overcomes the defect in its mechanism. The heart is a most cheery organ; it never asks for a rise in wages, never goes on strike, it always does its best to the utmost limit of its capacity. The heart may be temporarily affected after an illness, and the word goes forth that the patient has' something wrong with his heart. This is never forgotten' it casts a gloom over the whole house; whereas if only the truth was realised, that hearts can recover and go on beating, day and night, for fifty years after they have been affected, it would promote cheerfulness in the house. When I was a school doctor, little children used to tell me .ioir hearts were weak, when examination proved that the idea was quite mistaken

You must say to yourself, ‘“I think I have a weak heart. I wonder if I am right.” You can walk round to the doctor and ask his help to solve the knotty point; he will cheer you up, or give you good advice, anyway. I tannot allow you to go on thinking you are worse than you really are. Many of you do. You hate going to a doctor. One day you may have to go, because you want to buy a house and a life insurance policy is part of the scheme. You nearly die of fright when you walk into the doctor’s room; but the man of medicine, being also a man of experience, takes no notice of your demeanour, but just carries out the examination. You then learn that the doctor has passed you as a firstclass life, and you kick yourself for having believed for so many years that you had a weak heart. DESIRE FOR EXCITEMENT. We get so tired at our daily work that we feel the want of some stimulant. Some take beer, some take whisky, some take tea; the more depraved take cocaine or morphia; even methylated spirit is drunk by some of my friends who are brought into the police station. Some rely on mental excitement; they put more money on a horse than they can afford, and then wait in agony to know the result. Painful though this process may be, the excitement makes the heart beat more strongly and gives a sense of well-being for a time. The craving for excitement is worse to-day than it has ever been.

'I do not think that wa could do without stimulants, considering the life we lead. It would be a very hard-1 hearted man who would denounce the curate’s tired wife because she was thankful for a cup of tea. Tea is not nourishing; it is only a whip to the wearied nerves; but tea is very grateful and comforting. The poor lady must have a stimulant., if she is to , continue the struggle. But we all ought to bear in mind that there comes a time on the journey when the tired horse needs a rest and a feed of corn, not a slash with the whip. The ; tired curate needs a day in bed more ' than a pot of tea. ,

A TEA-TABLE TALK.

A long period of stimulationjiy tea, coffee, or even mental obstinacy is often the prelude to a nervous breakdown. This saddens me, because it is often the best of men who forces his body to go on working when it is crying out foi' a rest. He is conscientious; he has his job to do; he cannot set an example of slackness; the nerves are stimulated in a well-meant attempt to keep going, and then comes the inevitable breakdown. We must carefully set ourselves to discriminating between the use and the abuse of stimulants. Nothing is so easy as to overdo tea-drinking. Be lazy, if your overworked body demands it. 1 have u tiny cottage in the country; I have a hammock; 1 have two apple tress which support the hammock. My guests are not allowed to dash about when they come to see me. They are all tired town folk like I am, and they are made to lie in the hammock well wrapped, up. It is just possible, that my wife gives them a cup of tea as well'. But it is the ‘“hammock exercise” that sends them back to work on Monday feeling refreshed. Every time you drink a cup of tea make a small chalk mark on the wall, and then write and tell me how many marks are chalked up at the end of the week.

PREVENTION OF CANCER.

You can do your share in preventing cancer. Do not run away with ‘he idea that the whole matter may safely be left in the hands of a committee of experts. We confess v/e do not know as much about cancer as we should like to, but there are grounds for believing that any part of the body That is subject to chronic irritation may develop a growth. The constant rubbing of a rough tooth against the side of the tongue for years may result in tho formation of a cancc • of the tongue. The chronic ulcers seen on the legs of old people sometimes turn to cancer. And the common occurrence of cancer along the food tract is the result of the inflammation of many years. If the history of a hundred cases of cancer of the stomach are studied, it will be found that there was a period of chronic indigestion for years before the cancer started. So wo can do something to prevent cancer by taking care of our teeth and treating our stomachs with a little more consideration. The way some of you treat your insides is shocking. Three or four days’ constipation then a terrific aperient, then constipation again. Then a long period, from the age of fifteen to the ago of forty-five, during which the food is gobbled down as though you were a beast of prey—a wolf. Then a period of repentance when you feel that something really must be done; so you take seven dozen bottles of eighty-two different kinds of .quack muck, each kind of which promises you a certain cure while the cancer slowly develops. I know 1 preach to deaf ears; but 1 am scandalised by your conduct. GASTRIG ULCERS. Goodness knows it is a. terrible p.'inishment to have a gastric ulcer, a. serious operation, or an incurable cancer. I bully you so long as you arc in the stage when you are disobeying every law’of hygiene; but i

am silent when I place my hand on your abdomen and feel that lump which moans that’there is little hope ol cure. But still I have the reputation of being a hard-hearted man, and I will not forgive you if you refrain from teaching your children to avoid the faults that have given you such pain and suffering. Has a single one of you never warned your child not’ to eat so fast? 1 do hate that endless round of crime: gobble, gobble, gobble, rhubarb and salts; gobble, gobble, gobble, salts and rhubarb. No wonder so many of you die of caueer of the bowel.