TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 February 1939, Page 10

TALKS ON HEALTH

ABOUT FOODS. (By a Family Doctor!. All the things we eat may be included under fixed headings: 1. Nitrogenous foods, such as meat, fish, and the small amounts of nitrogenous materials in vegetables. 2. Carbohydrates, such as starch and sugar in any form, and -comprising all vegetables, bread, etc. 3. Fats, such as tne fat of meat, milk, butter, and the oil of certain vegetables. 4. Salts, such as common salt, phosphates, carbonates, etc. All these.five classes are absolutely essential, not only to the wellbeing, but to life itself; and they should be taken in proper proportion, although most people would be better if they took less meat. By far the commonest mistake is to eat too much of the nitrogenous class. A public banquet consists almost entirely of meat, using the word to include fish and game. The salts we eat form a very interesting class, and they are very little understood. The value of fresh fruit lies in the salts it contains. This was very clearly shown in the old days on board the ships that went long voyages and could not take fresh fruit and vegetables. The sailors, living on preserved foods, all suffered from scurvy, and they recovered when they got on shore and had fresh food. Occasionally a child, suiters from scurvy rickets to-day, and fresh orange or lemon-juice forms one of the most valuable of curative agents.

A POPULAR FALLACY. I One hears a good deal about phosphates. There is a superstition that phosphorous is good for the brain, and that fish, on that account, is the diet best suited for the brain. That is all nonsense. The phosphates are very widespread in nature, and every mouthful of bread or meat that you take contains a definite amount of phosphates. Do not think that you are using some strange remedy when you buy phosphates and eat them as medicine, toi you have been taking phosphates from your very first meal. Remembering that milk is a perfect food, it is useful to know that it contains plenty ot phosphates. The value of salts in forming bone was curiously borne out by the experiments on the rearing of young lions in captivity. At the Zoological Gardens, in London, it was found impossible to rear the little lions, as they all died of rickets, which is a disease of nutrition primarily affecting the bones. At last someone hit on the idea of mixing powdered bones with the food of the whelps, and from that day they thrived. It was the salts in the bones that were of such value.

NETTLE-RASH.

Nettle-rash is a cdmplaiht which manifests itself in the skin, but has its real origin in the intestines. Some poison is taken into the system, and it makes its way out into the skin, giving rise to blisters or weals all over the body. As the name implies, the blisters resemble the marks produced by sting from nettle. They may appear on the hands or face first, but generally come out all over the body. Fish which is not quite fresh is by far the commonest cause of nettle-rash. You should be careful how you eat your fish on a Monday, for it has probably been kept in the shop all through Sunday. Of course, the danger is worse in Summer than in Winter. Shell-fish, especially are not infrequently found guilty of producing nettle-rash, and' also ptomaine poisoning. Nettlerash attacks individuals in curious, inexplicable ways. Some people always

have a rasli after drinking champagne; others after salmon, and so on through a list of individual peculiarities. It is easy, however, to avoid the particular drink or article of diet that is followed by these undesirable results. For an ordinary case of nettle-rash, urticaria, the treatment is made obvious by the cause —a poison is in the intestines, so it must be got rid of as soon as possible. Take a dose of salts or castor oil, and be content with invalid diet for twenty-four hours. The rash will clear up of its own accord when the poison has been eliminated. The most soothing application is lead lotion applied cold. A MATTER OF TRAINING. In the avoidance of that most troublesome complaint, constipation, regularity of habit is, perhaps, the most important consideration. Here, indeed, is a case where good and bad habits can easily be learned in childhood. It cannot be too often repeated, or too strongly insisted upon, that any function of the body regularly performed becomes a sort of second nature. How soon, then, ought a child to be trained in habits of regularity? From the moment of birth is the answer. Any midwife of experience will tell you that a baby of a month old is quite capable of learning good habits. This places a great responsibility on parents in the training of their children in ways which will prevent constipation in future years.

THE DOCTOR’S PROBLEM. It is the same with habits as it is with the skeleton. If the spine at the back is allowed to grow crooked in youth, while the bones are soft, when the age of twenty is reached the bones become hardened and fixed, and no power on earth will make the crooked spine straight. Consider for a moment the problem which meets the doctor who is consulted by a young man of twenty who says he has been constipated all his life. Just think of it. Twenty years. And he expects me to cure him in a few days or hours. Do you think I should be unreasonable to ask for another twenty years to undo the harm? Well, there is nothing for it but to persevere. At first the treatment is not rewarded with 'success; but think of the baby learning to walk and the man learning to ride a bicycle; after many failures what at first was an almost impossible task became by perseverance second nature. Regularity is the secret of health. SOME SLEEP HINTS. |

If you cannot sleep, then an attempt should be made to discover the cause by experimenting. Perhaps you e-it too much late at night; or, on the other hand, you may have your last meal too early, so that by one or two o’clock in the morning you are hungry. Some ueonle find, a good “sleepingdraught” "is to be found in a couple of biscuits, eaten slowly, when sleep deserts the pillow. In some persons, the air of a stuffy bedroom awakes them early in the morning—the air is soon vitiated by two or more people. The remedy is to sleep with the window open. A dry mouth may awaken the mouth-breather, and an attempt should be made to cultivate the habit of breathing through the nose.