TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 February 1935, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

DON’T GET ILL

(By a Family Doctor)

Illness is expensive; it often requires money to get folk well. The lack of money worries the invalid; if only he had a ten-pound note up the chimney he would feel happier. Sonic of you are provident; some of you cannot possibly save on the money you get; but many of you are hopelessly extravagant. It requires courage to put five shillings away in the Post Office Savings Bank when it would be so much pleasanter to have a little dinner .with a pal and go to the pictures. The wealth that was poured into, the laps of the working classes during the war reminded me of the stories in the Arabian Nights. Even Grandma brought home her gold for sewing buttons on trousers. Some cottages had as much as twenty pounds a week coming in. And where is all that money now? Alas! it is not available for givinghelp during a time of illness. Finance is not a strong feature of some of you, I am afraid. Receive a pound and spend a pound is the only rule you know. I wish I could administer a little tincture of thrift in my medicine. A little store of notes is a wonderful pick-me-up for a sick person. So please try and put by a little for use in time of illness, however hard up you may be in these difficult times.

ALL ABOUT THE “FUNNY BONE.”

It is interesting to recall what a complicated thing the apparently simple movement of a linger is. Every finger contains a skeleton of bone. To the bone is attached a tendon or leader; it is stuck on like seaweed is stuck on -a rock. The other end or the tendon is attached firmly to a muscle which can contract and lengthen at will. The will is carried to the muscle by a nerve, a thin thread, very delicate and sensitive. You may know’ that a nerve is sensitive by remembering that time you struck your funny bone. At the back of the elbow’ a large nerve runs over the bone, -and when the nerve is pinched between the hard bone and the edge of the kitchen dresser it sends a shock up the arm. But the nerve does not end the story; some more chapters have to be written before we understand the true mechanism of a movement of the finger. The nerve conies from the spinal cord, which is tucked safely away inside the bony column that runs down the back. Look at the next skeleton you see in a museum. This spinal cord is, of course, a very important structure. If it is cut we may not die, but wo are paralysed in every part be-1 low the injury. |

AN ANATOMICAL LESSON. Let us be thankful that injuries to the spine are rare. Most of us go from the cradle to the grave without any sign of paralysis. Nature has surrounded the great nerve of the back with protective coverings, and a hard encasement of bone. And, finally, the nerves in the spine come from the brain. A small bullet wound of the brain would cause paralysis of the finger if it just touched the exact spot in the brain that governs the finger. Behind the brain lies the will power, and that is most mysterious of all. Can you remember it all? Bone, teudon, muscle, nerve, spiual cord.

brain, will power. And now you may see what a task it is for a doctor to discover why a man cannot move his finger. The cause may lie anywhere in the long chain I have described. For instance, if a. tendon is torn off the bone the finger will not move; the fault lies in the* 1 finger. Or, again, a haemorrhage in the brain will cause inability to move the finger; the cause is inside the skull. Or the only defect may lie in the will power.

THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD,

If Tommy says in the morning when he is called, “Oh, 1 cannot get up,” he is not paralysed. If it were the beanfeast morning’ he would jump up like a jack-in-the-box; but as it is raining, and the bed is warm, he finds his will power is not strong enough to send down the messages from the brain that would make him get up. I wish I knew a ionic for w„ak will.;. Whai a fortune 1 should make! All these good folk who are cured at revival meetings, or by drinking the water from holy wells, or by atten.l--ing seances conducted by wise women, are all suffering in one way and one way only. Their wills are weak; there is nothing wrong with their muscles or tendons or nerves. Their brains are stirred up and excited by the electrical atmosphere of the seance; their will power, which had lain dormant, is galvanised into activity. The crutches are thrown

away, and* they stand in front of tho camera joyfully, feeling that their pi''ture will appear in the papers next morning.

1M AG 1N AR Y 1N V A LID S

Will power is present in everyone as an inborn gift from on high. Sonic use it with force and vigour all their lives, and they have no urp f»r miracles or holy wells or revival meetings. They are the sane people, and good luck to them! Others make no effort of the will; they swell the ranks of the imaginary invalids, the cranks, the undesirable folk who prefer to sit at home grizzling about their poor nerves while others work; for them. These are the nuisances of the world, and it is a pity to make a fuss over them and put their pictures in the paper; many of them deserve a good spanking. There are too many who are ready to crawl 1 with painful steps and slow into the I witness-box to bring a claim for dam-i ages for nervous shock against the .ram company, only to find that after| the payment of the two hundred pounds their symptoms disappear in a “miraculous fashion.” INTER-DEPENDENT ORGANS. ' I am anxious to impress on you' that the organs of the body are'dependent on each other for their

I health. The blood must be cleansed |by the kidneys; the teeth affect the the heart is enlarged and weakened in kideny disease; the', lungs may be deranged by a defect in the nose. You cannot treat one organ alone. One application of this general principle is that an ulcer on the ( sight of the eye must be treated bv • attention to the general health. 1 ( ought to have written “prevented" instead of “treated." A weakly child j suffering from anaemia, rickets ami t debility, is very liable to get an ulcer on the eye. It is true that the t eye must have lotions and healing [ ointments but the fundamental treat- j ment is good food and plenty of it, g fresh air, a change to the seaside, ( plenty of sleep, and. in a word, cor- , rect hygiene.