TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 November 1932, Page 4

TALKS ON HEALTH

THE LIVING SKIN [BY A FAMILY DOCTOK.J A considerable part of medical treatment consists of talcing baths of various descriptions —hot baths, cold baths, mud baths, Turkish baths, sulphur baths, and a. host of other variations. It is impossible to understand the value of baths unless the t structure of the skin is known. Our I skins are not dead, like a pigskin portmanteau. The skin is very much ! alive, and is comething more than a mere covering to the body. Seveial different kinds of tissues may be seen in the skin when it is placed under the microscope. The skin is really - an organ, just as the kidney is. Blood comes to the glands of the skin, and certain deleterious matters are excreted by the skin. There is a kind of sympath.teic action between the skin amt the kidneys. That is why, in treating a case of kidney disease, n patient may be put in a “hot pack,” so' that he may perspire freely. As the kidneys are temporarily out of order, we can call on the glands of the skin to do a little work to help in the process of purifying the blood. THE GLANDS The skin contains two kinds of glands—the sweat glands and the sebaceous glands. The sweat glands act more freely in the hot weather and much less freely in the cold. The sweat is almost pure water, but it contains a small quantity of salts and impurities. The sebaceous glands secrete the natural grease of the skin: they are found all over the skin, and particularly around the hairs, as they manufacture the natural oils for the hair. In some people these glands do not act briskly enough, and the hair is dry and brittle. Some artificial substance, such as vaseline, must then be used as a substitute. The grease from these glands may go rancid and emit an unpleasant odour if the skin is not cleansed frequently. AMMONIA AND SULPHUR Ammonia in the bath can do no harm. It does not do much good to skin, but the faint odour of ammonia is refreshing, just as it is when sniffed out of a. bottle of smelling salts. Sulphur baths are most useful for certain skin diseases —they form the pleasantest manner of applying the sulphur. Baths are not so messy as ointments, and if the disease is very extensive the bath-water impregnated with sulphur will find its way to every nook and corner, whereas an ointment could not be so accurately applied all ovei’ the body. Baths, with a handful of washing soda dissolved in the water are often very soothing to an itching skin. f ! NERVES AND RLOOD;VESSELS The skin is very richly supplied with blood-vessels, Which can be dilated so as to make the surface of the body red and flushed, or contracted so that the surface of the body is dry and pinched. Everyone knows the difference between the appearance of a man who has just completed his century on the cricket field on a blazing summer day and the race of a man in a cold east wind. The difference is caused by means of the bloodvessels in the face. Their dilation or. contraction is brought about by nerves, which convey the proper mes-, sages to the walls of the blood-vessels’ and the nerves receive their message from a station in the brain which is specially endowed with the function of regulating the temperature of the body. It chiles the body to be flush- ’ ed, because the blood comes to the surface and is cooled by the breeze; it warms the body to be made to look : blue, because all the blood is kept in- i side the body, where it is nice and warm. It is curious that our sensations are not to be trusted. Whether we are shivering with cold . or panting with the heat, as a matter of fact our temperatures are the same : as can very soon be proved by means ; pf a thermometer. I

PROOF OF THE CURE Every day new cures, or supposed cures, "are being brought out, and claims are made that now at least we can banish, this and 'that disease off the face of the earth. The science and art of medicine are so difficult and so closely hedged round with obstacles that prevent us from reaching certain conclusions that I advise you never to accept any theory until it has been put into practice and proved to be as definite a cure as it is claimed on paper to be. In the medical papers we are convinced only when a number of cases have been watched by competent observers and the results tabulated and estimated at their true and final value.

THE NATURAL COURSE If a. man gets better after taking a remedy, it. does not follow that the remedy cured him. Take, as an example, inflammation of the lungs or pneumonia. This complaint follows a definite course. The patient first of all shivers, then his temperature runs up and remains high for about a week, and then the fever leaves him suddenly and a steady improvement sets in. Now that is the nature of the disease. The natural recuperative forces of the body are at work all the time, and their victory over lhe microbe takes place at (he end of a week. A number of drugs might be tried and, if they were given just one day before the ordinary termination of the fever, an ignorant observer would attribute the recovery Io the drug. It does not follow at all if a man recovers from some fancied remedy that he would not have recovered much sooner without it. It is only by being able to bring forward a. series’ of one hundred cases in which the mortality has been reduced that a. definite conclusion can be reached. 1

THE SERUM TREATMENT A good example to quote is the serum treatment of diptheria. The records of the cases of diptheria are carefully kept, and can be referred to at any time —they reach back many j years. Doctors all over the world I studied the effect of the serum treatment, and they found that if the results in ten thousand cases before the serum was adopted were compared

with the results after the serum had been used on the children, the latter were much better off. Not half the number died. The mortaJ’ty was enormously decreased, and the medical profession feels now that it almost amounts to a crime to withhold from a patient the injection. of the serum which has’ been proved to do so much good. We- do not. claim that

diptheria has been banished, but its terrors have been diminished, and far fewer children die now than formerly. NATURE THE HEALER Most doctors dislike the saying that we cure our patients. The correct view to take is that we advise our patient to adopt, measures which put them in the way of being cured hy Nature. If a. lung is congested, no doctor can clean out. that, lung with an instrument and remove the congestion. What the doctor does is to advise about suitable diet. rest, warmth, correct, temperature of the room, methods to induce sleep, and to relieve pain, but the real cure is brought about by the wonderful workings of the structures inside the body which seem to possess some extraordinary instinct to guide them to a cure.