TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 June 1933, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

THE JOINT OR THE MUSCLES? [BY A FAMILY DOCTOR.] Will you please try to understand the difference between weakness of a joint and weakness of the muscles that move the joint? This is generally a puzzle to others than doctors, with the result that mistakes in treatment are often made by those who try to doctor themselves. Think of a flagstaff. Viewed from a distance in a gale of wind., it may look shaky. Is it the flag-staff that is rotten and split, or is it the ropes that support it that are frayed and perished? If the ropes are weak and rotten, it will not do much good to put another coat of varnish on the flag-staff, and if the flagstaff is cracked it will not help matters by strengthening the ropes. WEAK AND WASTED MUSCLES. . Now, when you walk downstairs and feel your knee give way, you must not concentrate your attention on your knee, but on the muscles that move and strengthen the knee. That mass of muscle on the front of the thigh runs down and is fastened to the kneecap. When the knee is bent, it is that mass of muscle that sustains the knee. If you have had an accident, or had some affection of the'leg, or of the nerves that supply the limb with nervous energy, you may have a weakness of these muscles on the thigh. Take a tape measure and see which thigh is the bigger round —they ought to be the same. When you find these muscles wqak and wasted, you can forget all about the knee-joint and devote all your time to working up the muscles, and in a few weeks you will find the knee is strong. But if you say to-yourself that the joint is wrong, you will never get better by rubbing the joint with oils.

DUMB-BELLS OR A SLING The poor old doctor knows all about this. It takes him two-two’s to spot the weakness of the muscles of the thigh. You ask for a knee-cap to wear round the joint; you have made the old mistake. You cannot get into your head that the muscles work the joint, and that it is the muscles that wanttreatment, and not the joint. If you had a weak biceps, and you wanted to make it Strong, what would you do? Or, rather, what should I do? Of course, I should buy some dumb-bells, and use them whenever I got a chance. I ou wohld keep your arm in a sling and never move your biceps; all you would do would be to grumble at the 'doctor for not curing the weakness of your biceps. We shall never get on as long as we arc at cross purposes like this. The doctor bawls in the ear of his patient that dumb-bells must be used, the patient screams back that he is going to keep his arm in a sling, and that settles it. 1 AN UNREASONABLE PATIENT Now we will come back to the man with a knee that is weak because the muscles that work if are wasted. What! ought I to recommend? Why. walk-’ ing, of course, a bit wore each day un- j til the muscles are strong again. But what does the patient do? Ah, that is a different matter. Feeling his knee

weak, he uses two crutches so as to prevent the muscles doing any work at all. He will not bear his weight on the limb. At the end of a week the muscles are weaker, and the man says he cannot put his weight on the limb until it gets a bit stronger. At the end of another week things are worse, and still the man sticks to his crutches, and still he says he will not work the muscles until they are strong. By this time, the doctor’s hair is a shade greyer, his shoulders yet more bowed. A MARVELLOUS CURE “Fling away your crutches and walk on your weak leg, and the strength will gradually come back.” “Not me,” says the patient. And so things drag on for months until the Miracle Man comes to the villagel He stands no nonsense; he takes hold of the leg and works it vigorously up and down; then he flings the crutches over the wall, and taking the man by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his trousers, he runs him up and down until he calls for mercy. Next day .he does the same, and at the end of a week the long-disused muscles begin to wake up. Splendid fellow, the Miracle Man! “Don’t you let me catch you walking with a stick, or I will break it across your back,” he yells. At the end of a month the man is walking about like anyone else, and the first thing he does is to write to the ■papers saying what a horrible condition the medical profession is in, and what’s to be done about it? And the doctor who hears that the Miracle Man rushed the silly man up and down his room until he begged for mercy enjoys the first really good laugh he has had for months.

REMOVE THE RING. ■When you receive an injury to a finger that wears a ring, remove the ring at once, even though it is your wedding-ring, which you have not taken off for years.. If you wait, the finger will swell, and then the ring will be embedded, in the swollen flesh, and give no end of trouble. The recovery from the injury depends on the circulation in the finger. If the flow of healthy blood to thhe crushed flesh is impeded by the constricting ring, then perhaps festering will set in, when it might have been prevented . by the removal of the encircling band of metal. If delay leads to a swelling of the finger that makes the taking off of the ring impossible, the ring must be filed through by a wire file or cut through with special shears. EAT SLOWLY. One of the most pressing rules for to-day is to cat slowly. If it is hard enough to get food, it is doubly important to derive all the nourishment out of it when we do get it. If we eat fast, the food is not masticated, and half of it is wasted. The stomach j cannot cope with ill-masticated lumps; 1 I the lumps pass on without being con-1 verted into good flesh and blood. It is not enough that the mother should stagger home with a bag laden -with food, not enough that it should be well cooked, not enough that it should be put in the mouth —it must be digested. Ami that’s where you all make i a big mistake. You think that as long as the food is rammed down somehow into your insides all will be well. Write it up in large letters over the

dining-room mantelpiece—“ Eat slowly.” TONGUE-TIED BABIES. A word on the questtion of a baby being tongue-tied. This condition is so rare that it may be said to be almost non-existent. Under the tongue in every ordinary individual, young or old, is a small string that runs from the floor of the mouth to the un-der-surface of the tongue. In a grownup the string does not reach nearly to the tip, but in a baby it looks as though the end of the tongue was bound down by it. The reason is that an is undeveloped. The tongue is used to talk with, and as a baby does not talk its tongue remains small. It is a grave error to tear the string or cut it with scissors; it only makes a wound and gives the baby pain. And, moreover, when the wound is healed, and the scar forms it binds the tongue down tighter than ever. No, the tongue must be left alone.