TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 April 1934, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

(By a Family Doctor) PLEASANT READING I want you to read about something elso besides murders and other crimes. I want you to give a trial to some of the old favourites, especially before you go to sleep. What about “The Vicar of Wakefield”? You have not read that, for a long .time, and it will not do you any harm to read it twice.’ You must sink into a peaceful slumber with gentle thoughts of green fields and comfortable people and peaceful pastimes.. There are some lucky folk who can control their thoughts and guide their minds as a mariner. steers his ship. But some of us are less fortunate; however hard we try, we cannot put certain thoughts out of our minds. In that case, a book that introduces fresh ideas and characters to one’s notice is a valuable friend. BISCUITS BY THE BEDSIDE You should keep a few' biscuits by your bedside. You may wake up at two or three in the morning and not be able to get to sleep again; to eat a few biscuits brings- slumber. Don’t make crumbs in the bed, and don’t let the crumbs go down the wrong way. A feeling of hunger drives sleep away, the brain gets, busy, and sleep is banished. Whatever organ is being used most gets the largest supply of blood. Nature has a marvellous way of regulating the'amount of blood that is sent to any part. When you are adding up the housekeepingbooks the extra blood goes' to the brain; when you are enjoying the pleasant fullness after a good meal all the extra blood is in the digestive organs. That is why you feel sleepy after a meal; the blood goes to the liver and not to the brain.' Warm feet and something in the stomach draw' the blood away from the brain and induce sleep. A very hot bath y/ill keep you awake; a tepid bath -will make you sleepy. CHILDREN AND PARENTS . One day I shall start a discussion in .the. papers, “Should little. children obey their parents?” All my wellmeant efforts to keep little children healthy are made useless because the mothers assure me quite solemnly that little Agnes and Katie will notgo to bed when they are told. And, of course, dear mothers, if Agnes says she won’t go to bed there is nothing more to be said. This lack of discipline is deplorable. Mothers are sat on by children of six'. Any mother who is so incompetent that she has to submit to the authority of a child in the infant’s , department ought to be deprived of her children. My language is terrible to listen to when mothers come to me with sickly children and I discover after a few questions that all that is needed is a. little common sense and wholesome care.

THE TYRANT You think I am joking, but you should come and sit by my side in the Children's Out-patient Department, and you would see some examples of mothers that would make your hair curl. Little Agnes, aged seven, will not go to bed at half-past six, and she will not eat her nice milk pudding, and so she gets thin and has circles under her eyes. Her father

is a blacksmith and her mother a washerwoman, but Agnes downs them both. But never mind; let her ■ go to bed as late as she like, and let eat any rubbish: let her disobey her mother and undermine her own health; it does not matter—nothing matters ’so long as she drinks something out of a bottle. TOES AND TOENAILS For in-growing toenail all that is needed in the majority of cases is to have properly shaped boots. It is the pointed boot that crushes the big toe against the other toes that brings about the painful condition. If the toe has been neglected for a long time and the flesh has grown round over the nail, then an operation is necessary. 1 warn you against trying to do this yourself; you will make matters worse, as 1 have seen in many cases. Do not cut a V-piece out of the nail; this is worse than useless. A foot should be an object of beauty; a baby’s foot is a source of great delight to the mother and to all beholders, but the feet of grown-up people are generally made hideous with in-growing toenails, corns, bunions, hammer-toes. etc. TEETH IN A.D. 3934 An examination of a number of young men shows that we are a long way yet from understanding the importance of the care of the teeth. I do not despair, because I have always written that it will take a thousand years to drive this simple truth into the heads of the British public. It is about four or five thousand years since the Ten Commandments were given to the world, but one does not see much evidence to-day of the commands being obeyed. I am far from being impatient; let us make it two thousand yeais, so as to give people time to turn round before deciding to take care of their teeth. When your descendant in the year of Grace 3934 comes down to his bacon and eggs, and opens his paper to see how the world is going on, let us hope that his smile of joy will reveal a nice -white row of healthy ivories. Perhaps the museums of that day will show jaws of “Ancent Britons” of 1934 with a foul complement of rotten, blackened [stumps, but the good people, will pass by such exhibits as too disusting for polite eyes. . A PLEA FOR THRIFT I wonder if a mere doctor might be allowed to say a word on behalf of thrift. No doctor will deny that a peaceful mind is strongly conducive to recovery from a bodily illness. Illness very often brings with it financial loss. The worry about money delays recovery; it leads to a premature return to work, followed by a second break-down, when a fortnight spent at a health resort would have firmly established the new found health. That twenty-pound note under the pillow is an excellent sleeping draught. Now is' the time to put your money by for a rainy day or a pneumonia day; crisp banknotes are very good friends in times of illness.

1 am not sure whether a melancholy disposition causes constipation or whether constipation causes a melancholy disposition. Possibly there is some truth in both sides of the question. Anyway, try and keep cheerful as part of the treatment; it helps wonderfully. If you laugh it forms a splendid exercise for the diaphragm and all the abdominal muscles that play such an important part in the functions of the liver and bowels,