TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1933, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

ABOUT SNORING.

[by a family doctor.]

If you open your mouth wide in front of a looking-glass you will see at the back of the throat a little red curtain hanging down, which has received the name of the soft palate or uvula. Snoring is caused by the vibration of this soft palate, and to produce a good full-blown snore, the mouth must be open. So the problem of curing snoring is simple—the mouth must be shut. Now, how are we to manage to keep the mouth shut during sleep? It is very difficult if once the habit of keeping the mouth open is acquired. Of course, as is always the case, prevention is better than cure, and careful mothers train their children to sleep with their months shut. If you go into the nursery and gently close the lips of your sleeping baby, you are doing something which will earn the ever-lasting gratitude of its future husband or woe, as the case may be.

Mouth-breathing is not merely a bad habit, it is a definite source of danger, and leads to bronchial catarrh and many other troubles. We are meant to breathe through our noses, just like horses do, even when they are blown and out of breath on the hunting-field. Sleep with your mouth shut, and you will not snore. We have only two possible passages to breathe through—one is the nose and the other is the mouth —so if you have to keep your mouth shut you must respire through the nose. And that is where the trouble comes in—there may be some obstructions to the free passage of air through the nose. KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. The commonest form of obstruction is a growth at, the back of the nose called adenoids: these may be removed by a small operation. Oilier forms of obstruction occurring more commonly in grown-up people arc polypi and some; deformity in the curtilage inside the nose. These defects must be remedied by an. operation. We must therefore be careful to distinguish between the two very different classes of mouth-breathers. On the one hand arc those who could

not breathe through their noses if they would, because of the obstruction; and on the other we have those who could and they ought to train themselves to do so. Much can be done by constant training and perseverance. When I used to sleep with my mouth open I used to snore, and wake up in the morning with a dry, unpleasant mouth. Now that 1 have trained myself to sleep with my mouth shut I no longer snore, and 1 feel pleasanter when 1 wake. A SIMPLE TEST OF HEARING. Parents sometimes think a child seems deaf, but do not know how to make sure. Here is a simple test. Place the child twelve or fifteen feet away with his back turned to the observer. Ask him to repeat the words you say. Start, by saying “Five” in a loud voice, and continue to say other numbers, chosen at random, with a softer and softer, voice. Now try the same experiment with someone whose hearing is known to be normal; you will note that a number said in a soft '

voice is easily heard and repeated by the normal person, but does not reach the ear of the deaf child. A whisper may be heard by the ear of one, while a fairly loud-speaking voice may bo necessary to get a response from the other at the same distance. The reason for turning a child’s back is that if he is allowed to watch the lips of the experimenter, he may guess the word by the movement of the lips when he cannot really hear what is said. AFTER HAVING A TOOTH OUT. After a tooth has been drawn, it is very important to remember that the treatment is not finished with. The socket was very likely occupied by an abscess and in a very inflamed condition, and now that the offending tooth has gone the socket must be attended to with the greatest care. If the pus and clotted blood and debris of food from the mouth collect at thq bottom of the hole left by the tooth, the inflammation may be kept up, the face may still be swollen, and a certain amount of pain may persist. And all this happens because the after-treatment has been neglected. You must keep the inflamed socket well washed out with some mild antiseptic mouthwash. It should be used warm unless there is any oozing of blood, when it may be quite cold. The mouth wash should be guided straight into the socket and plenty of it must be used. Especially must the mouth be washed out after a meal; bits of food decay very quickly and give rise to an offensive discharge from the socket. The frequent use of an antiseptic mouth-wash after the removal of a tooth cannot be recommended too strongly.

' PLUGGING THE TOOTH SOCKET. Another complication which wr 1 may have to deal witli is haemorrhag i ' from the tooth socket. If the bleediu ; •is at all severe, washing out th > mouth is of no use. In tlie large m. ■ - jority of cases the bleeding stops < • its own accord, but if it does m . stop by the evening, go and see th ; dentist or the doctor. Some of ye.;/ 1 regret to say, go to bed, hoping will stop, and wake up about two i ■ the morning with blood on the pillar. A piece of lint must be packed tigh in th? socket, and kept in position by clenching the jaw.' It. takes ;■ skilled hand to place the socket properly. The plug must be remove : carefully next morning. GRIT IN THE EYE. I see from lime to time a fair nunPer of cases of people suffering fro- : inflamed eyes, erroneously attribute to cold, when the real explanation i; a piece of grit . If takes a practise ' c.v(' to detect a foreign body in th eye. A fly on the eyelid is easi! seen, and so is a speck of coal, h • cause the black shows up against th red. but a black coal against th black pupil is most difficult ot. scAnd the removal must always 1; • given over to skilled hands. Th > feeling in the eye must be numbed b. i cocaine, and the piece of grit remove ' ; by a, special instrument. I feel sur ' this is a useful piece of advice. If you ; suffer from an inflammation of on < eye while the other remains clear. I 1 you must make certain that the in-|t flanimation is not due to a piece of ( grit. ' J