TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 February 1932, Page 8

TALKS ON HEALTH

FIGHT AGAINST CONSUMPTION; [by A family -doctor,] !1 ’ If you are to fight an enemy you must first know what he is like, where ’ s ; he is to be found, what his habits are, and all about him. In the great fight O against consumption it is most imporr, tant that the people should have 3 good working knowledge of the dife- ** ease.. Let me first impress on you that it is only in the early stages that • the disease is curable. It is not the 1(1 doctor’s business to call at your house s- every day and ask if there is anyone with consumption living there. That P is one of our difficulties. We cannot go to the consumptive; the consumptive has to come to us, and he does not always do it until it is too late. !: A PUBLIC DANGER. .? A good beginning has been made ’’ by the medical examination of school , n children. In that case the doctor does “go to the consumptive, and, having found him, is enabled to deal with him on scientific lines. We have to regard as a public danger the hidden consumptive—that is the man who is j spreading the disease through his breath and through his sputum, and * who is submitting himself to no treat- , ment and to no laws of hygiene. Sor- . row we should all feel for any man affected by this disease, but our hearts t should not run away with our heads. it is thoroughly wrong that a man . should be at large and every day suba jecting the people around him to a q dangerous risk. The clerk who sits in . a room with six others every day and all day and is coughing the germs ’ over his comrades is guilty of a mitjdemeanour. ) f A SCANDALOUS THING. j You know that in law it is no ex-{. . cuse to plead that you were ignorant; that such and such a law existed. It . is supposed to be your business to • j know something about the laws of your • country. And it ought not to be a 1 valid excuse if the clerk pleads that' ' he did not know he had consumption. 1 when it first began. It is his duty toM know; it is his fault if he does not know, and if he cannot tell himself, 1 ’ he should seek the advice of someone ] who could enlighten him. To my mind 1 it is a scandalous thing that a clerk t should call on the sweetheart of the 1 man who worked with him, and whom he has infected with consumption, and 1 say: T am really very sorry, but I 1 had no idea I was infectious in any t way.” If I were that sweetheart I s would give the clerk a piece of my 1 mind. If you knock a man down and £ then kick him in the mouth you get 1 hauled up before the beak and imprisoned or fined. But a kick in the mouth is a trivial matter compared t to infecting a man with phthisis. 0 b GET PROPER ADVICE. a C Heredity plays an important part, ( and any man with a bad family his- F tory should be particularly careful. 2 He would be wise to choose an out- A

a-j door occupation. And if lie gets a s. •. cough he should be more careful i- the ordinary man. You must not fall >-|into the error of believing that every s i consumptive shows the cardinal signs eiof dreadful wasting, languor, and : blood-spitting in large quantities. I I- am trying to educate you to make a; l- better fight than you do, and I tvant I r you to understand that you must not; ” wait for all those advanced signs and; ;, symptoms before you think of asking - advice. Remember that the early, t cases when the symptoms are very - slight are the very ones we want to! :1 get hold of. You must get proper - advice. I have no sympathy with the ~ old paterfamilias whose own job is: : auctioneering, and who advises his coughing daughter to buy a bottle of ” quack medicine. Down with such r Pater Family Asses! Nothing strikes . such despair into the heart of a doc- ’ tor as to find, at his first examination, i that the disease is far advanced. It 1 is not treating the poor man fairly; i he does not get a dog’s chance. A long-continued cough should always make one suspect phthisis. If I the weight goes down or remains t stationary in a growing adolescent, it is also a reason for careful inquiry ; and examination. Night sweats may l be a symptom, but are not always re- > liable signs. The two great safeguards t against allowing an early case of tub- . erculosis to develop secretly are (1) an examination of the lungs by a doctors; arid (2) an examination of the sputum that is coughed up. CONSUMPTIVES AND SANATORIA. Let me tell you quite plainly that it is extremely difficult to be certain in very early cases. The signs may, be doubtful, and no sensible doctor is going to frighten his patient by declaring he has consumption unless he is certain of his facts. Therefore, itj is nothing against the doctor if he' asks for a second or a third opportunity of examining the lungs. And you must keep this golden fact ever before you in this connection—that it is better to take precautions in a doubtful case and put the patient on a strict health regime than to do the other thing and neglect a possible case of phthisis. Concentrate on the early cases. You sometimes think that the: decision of a doctor against allowing '.a man with consumption to go into a sanatorium is harsh and cruel. ’ You, are wrong. Sanatoria are not homes, for the dying. The bed that the dying man would occupy would be much better filled by a young man whose chances of recovery—complete recovery—were rosy. There is to be no panic, no senseless fears. Only common sense and a determination that you, at least, will never run the risk of infecting others if it can be avoided. THE BRAIN AND THE MUSCLES. The movements of the liinbs are governed by the brain. The left side of the brain looks after the right side of the body, and vice versa. That is why we can tell that when the left side of the body is paralysed the damage was done to the right portion of the brain. The power di speech is a muscular speech. The breath is pumped out by the breathing muscles. The vocal .chords are really little muscles which can be relaxed or pulled taut to produce the different sounds of whispering speaking, or singing, and of course the tongue and lips are composed entirely of muscles covered by skin. AU those muscles concerned in speech are under the control of a special part of the brain, and this centre of control is found on the left side of the brain. For this reason it is more serious to have a fit of paralysis affecting the right side of the body, for in that case the patient may be deprived of the power of speech.