TALKS ON HEALTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 8

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR THE JOINT OR THE MUSCLES 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 flag-staff erected on the common. 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 flag-staff is cracked it will not help matters by I strengthening the ropes.

| Now, when you walk dow-nstairs and ! feel your knee give w'ay, you must not ! concentrate your attention on your i knee, but on the muscles that move and 1 strengthen the knee. That mass of muscle on the front of the thigh runs down and is fastened to the knee-cap. 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 ot 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 weak and wasted, you can forget all about the knee-joint and devote all your time to j working up the muscles, and in a few j 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. DUMBELLS 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 tnigh. You ask for a knee-cap to wear round the joint; you have made the old mistake. You cannot get into ycur head that the muscles w-ork the joint, and that it is the muscles that want treatment, 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 1 do? Of course. 1 should buy some dumb-bells, and use them whenever 1 got a chance. You would Keep your arm in a sling and I 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 so long as we are 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 settle# it. Now we will erne back to the man with a knee that is weak because the muscles that work it are wasted. What ought I to recommend? Why, walking, of course, a bit more each day until the muscles are strong again. But wh it 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 shoulder# 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,” say# the patient. And so things drag on lor months until the Miracle Man comes U> the village. He stands no nonsense; he takes hold of the leg and works it vigorously up and down; then lie flings the crutches over the wall, and, taking the man by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers, he runs him up and down until he calls lor mercy. Next day he does the same, and at the end of a week the long-dis-used muscles begin to wake up. Splendid fellow, (hat Miracle Man! "Don t you let me catch you walking with a stick or 1 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? I And the doctor who hears that the Miracle Man rufhed the silly man up and down his room until he begged for mercy, enjoys the first really good laugh he has had for months.

HAIR AND THE HEALTH You must never forget how important the general health is in connection with the health of tne hair. In the majority of cases the treatment lor falling hair must be two-fold to the general health and to the scalp. It is not always possible to produce a beautiful head of hair for the asking; some people have eoar-e or poor l air, and nothing will alter :t. But when we recall that the hair grows from a root, and that the root is nourished by the blood, it will be seen how important the condition of blood is. Take an extieme instance, such as typhoid fever, when the patient’s blood is thoroughly out of order; the hair alt falls off And what is the treatment? Nothing need be done to the scalp: as the patients recovers and the system

gains strength, the hair begins to grow of its own accord So you see the answer to your queries about hair may be and often is: “Look after your general health.” A girl with a tendency to anaemia may improve the quality of her hair by treating the anaemia. And do not be impatient; even if the treatment is highly successful, it will take some w'ecks before the good effect is ful!v shown. A hair once grown is unalterable; the blood docs not run up the hair as, the san runs un a tree. You must w-ait for the old hair to fall off and the new hair to take its place.

Singeing the hair is useless: the treatment of hair is the treatment of the scalp: to burn a bit of hair three or four Inches away from the scalp cannot possibly do any good There comes a time when you must accept the inevitable: when once the root from which the hair grows is dead no pow»er on *»nrth will resuscitate the defunct hair. You cannot growt a hyacinth unless there is a bulb to grow it from Baldness. especially when it runs in the family, may occur very early in life, and it is often very difficult to overcome. Do not be deluded into thinking that a bald scalp can be covered with a luxuriant growth of hair One of the commonest causes of the falling off is seurf The best treatment is to vsasli the scalo with a solution of soft sotw in rectified spirit. Once a week is often enough.