MEDICAL NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9581, 4 August 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

DRINKS FOR COLD WEATHER. ! Whatever the weather or circumstances may be, they are made to be proper reasons for having a drink, that is an alcoholic drink, by many thoughtless persons. Men say they need a drink to keep the cold out, and on a hot day that they need a drink because the heat is so oppressive. If it is a very rainy, season they want a little extra stimulant because the damp is so depressing, and if the weather be dry and with a high wind men must drink because they require alcohol to prevent' them catching cold. Very much the same reasons are given why it is always proper to smoke. We must suppose that there is some foundation for these needs, and yet the necessity must be but small, because a considerable portion of the community, the teetotallers, remain as well, if nob better, in health than their alcoholic neighbours, without any such sort of drink at all. There is no chance that all men will be converted to total abstention from alcohol for a long while to come, so that it will be of advantage to consider how much is known of the truth as regards the need and value of stimulants in the cold weather we are now experiencing. Setting aside the abstainers, it will be fairly safe to consider that all who constantly drink alcohol freely, and for amuse? merit, are injuring their present ana future states of health; and Xit would be nearly the truth to say of all moderate drinkers that any additional quantity, whatever the excuse for taking the extra amount may be, adds a certain risk to health, to digestion, appetite, and to clear-headedness. It is no doubt a fact that on a day of severe frost, and of cold; a glass of grog, hot and strong, drunk upon an empty stomach, produces a sense of comfort and well being, bien aise, as the French call it, that nothing else will produce.: Bub this state is not necessarily, or at all certainly, a state of greater safety and of 'less , risk of illness, and this should, after all, be the test of value of any treatment. In severe cold weather the surface of the body is no doubt cooler than usual when exposed to the air. This is due to the constringing effect of cold upon the blood vessels. To produce a state of equilibrium, the blood vessels of the internal organs are dilated. If these effects became excessive, no doubt a state of danger would ensue, such as seen in frostbite and cases of death from exposure. There is great value in doses of hot liquids - containing nerve tonics or fluid nutritive food, bub alcohol, under these circumstances, involves certain risks rof its own. TJie best drinks to promote health and warmth during exposure to cold are hob coffee and hob Bovril soup, or other meat extract liquids. Of these coffee provides a nerve tonic and stimulant without any harmful effect. Cocoa and chocolate with hot milk are also of great value. Liebig's Extract with hot water, Bovril and soups from meat and vegetables provide both heat and actual nutriment, the truest stimulant. Alcohol and hob water are not productive of any nutrition, cannot replace loss of tissue, and their stimulant value is alike too rapid (except when valuable as a medical restorative for faintness) and too evanescent, that is, it passes off too quickly. But a graver fault, considered as a remedy for cold, is that ib causes flushing of the skin, and so reverses Nature's own method of avoiding chills. This flushed surface, meeting the same degree of cold that ib had before borne easily,'gets what is called " chilled," and this effect is often transferred to a general chill of the syste.m and a cold, rheumatism, or bronchitis very likely follows. WORRY AND INDIGESTION. Worry is a baneful curse and source of untold evils. It seams the face with lines and furrows, and has a most depressing effect upon that hypersensitive organ, the stomach, which at such times becomes a most unwilling and laggard servant. Indeed, it is ; safe to say that, unless encouraged by a cheerful temper, and bright, or ab least hopeful thoughts, the stomach will play truant, or sulk and do no work which ib can shirk. The physiological explanation of this is the close alliance of the great sympathetic nerves, which are worse than the telegraph for 'carrying bad news ; the worry and anxiety which depress the brain produce simultaneously a semiparalysis of the nerves of the stomach, gastric juices will not flow, presto ! there is indigestion. One sign of mental health is serenity of temper and : self-con-trol, that - enables us to bear with equanimity and unruffled temper the petty' trials and jars of life, * especially those arising from contact with scolding, irascible, irribtaing folk. It is well to remember ab such times 1 that these unfortunates are their .own worst enemies, and a cultivation of the arb of nob hearing will help us very much. Ib is a very useful art all through ife, and well-worth some trouble to acquire. Demoresb's Magazine. , * CANCER HOUSES AND THEIR , VICTIMS. v Mr. Shabtock, in the Morton Lecture, before the Koyal College of Surgeons, called attention to' the fact that cancer, like con-, sumption, may frequently show itself in certain houses. . The British; ■ Medical Journal publishes an ," article <by , D'Arcy Power, in which he gives a number of . instances of this, coincidence. In \ each instance a series of cases occurred in a certain house amongst persons who were nob related by blood to each other. He observes that these cases and others like them may be coincidences, as might happen when we consider . the enormous number. of deaths which occur V annually in \ Europe ; from cancer. > They may, <; however, poinb to a more specific origin of the disease. No one imagines' that cancer is directly contagious. Ib is possible, however, in epidemic cases, that there may §be some condition of earth or water common Ito all f the individuals attacked. in which s- the organism, ■if such there be, may pass a part of its existence, • i