MEDICAL NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 6 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

CHEST DEFORMITIES. n--; For many, chest deformities uiuch can usually be done if the patient'is "caught" young enough. rlt'i i 3 useless to attempt any radical reformation of the bony 'parts in adult life. In the first place, it is well to keep a > record of the exact amount of the deformity; and 'this'can"; be done with the - aid of a piece of ; ordinary lead gas;tubing, say - a quarter of an'; inch in diameter. ~ A length of this should be taken, and pressed closely around the chest, so as 'to be moulded into the hollows and over the prominences of the, chest walL r By means of a pencil the shape can now be traced upon a sheet of card or paper, arid .J the date ;. should ; . be written ~ against the ■ curve. • Every week or month a new template should be made in the same way, and the tracings compared, with a; view to t ' noticing the progress made. --'""- Suitable exercises, massage, arid deep nose-breath-ing offer the best chances of improving mailers. An open-air life should be prescribed as much as possible, with plenty of good, plain food. Physical drill, such" as can be obtained at most schools nowadays, the use ot the skipping-rope, and anything, indeed, which encourages the full expansion of the" chest, without incurring overfatigue, can be recommended. Constant application and the exercise of much patience''will have encouraging results; and nothing will keep up the child's interest blithe scheme so much as the study of his own charts. As he sees improvement taking place, he will be all the keener in carrying out the exercises' so necessary for success. The younger the patient, the greater the promise of good results; but there is always, a chance of betterment so long as the age- of growth has not been passed. " . TOOTHACHE AND EARACHE. Once upon * time the that is the official list of drugs and preparations kept:. in stock by. the chemist, and prescribed by the' doctor*—contained a large number of very useful and serviceable medicinal concoctions. Since then most or ' all'of these have been tinkered with, and, in some opinions, more or less spoiled. Perhaps after the war we may hope for reforms urgently required here, as in many other quarters that could be readily indicated. Among these preparations was the glycerine of carbolic acid, which _ contained one part of liquified* carbolic acid to five parts of glycerine. * Subsequently water - was added with deteriorating effect; the old form is the best.. It was a sovereign r remedy for the toothache j (and also for earache.) You . had only- ip push a tiny pledget of cotton-wool- soaked therein into the cavity of the % and .the pain " ceased like magic, '.Or. > if* your ear -was at fault, you had only to warm a few (a very few) drops in a teaspoon, and pour them into the ear-cavity, with the like result; If there is no cavity in* the tooth, and you have an ache proceeding from suppuration at the roots or from inflammation of the —there is no more acute agony—tincture of iodine often affords immediate relief and cessation to the pain. You place a camel's hair brush in this and then press it to the gum over the tooth-fangs. The remedy appears to have an effect upon the arterial; tension; and so to end the intolerably gnawing sensation. •"* This effect is not sufficiently appreciated by dentists who, ; usually recommend the; application only for chronic inflammations. 'Bat it is nevertheless pronounced ' enough; and. sufferers from toothache, .when there is* no tooth cavity, may be glad to try it .As regards pain, ,we are' many' of .us arrant cowards nowadays— is one result of our higher civilisation. ' It is a long " time since the blacksmith was .the - approved extractor of teeth: which he proceeded to: remove with a punch and a hammer. I

trxatxent of .wounded. I The great work of Lord Lister was to •* enable operations to be done '-■ in the absence of bacteria; and it was that work which rendered modern surgery possible i The problem of 5 the- sepsis of wounds I could not be solved, he tfiought, by merely," .putting, disinfectants into ~ the ; wound; but if secondary infection i- of a wound were obviated, as much was there- . by dons for the" patient as if the bacteria in his wound ; had been \ destroyed. ,It was '; upon these lines that a great advance was ' . >toI be expected in } the treatment of these difficult -cases because nothing could pre- ■■ vent these war wounds from being septic , When a man was brought in wounded, the first thing to deal with was not the wound, but tho man himself; he must be restored .to a condition in which he was treatable. After 1 the period of (-train' to which he had been subjected, even a slight wound , might mean a nervous breakdown and if the wound were serious he was suffering from*blood loss and shock. The severe pain must first be stopped, because while that lasted,- practically anything - which might , be done was useless. At the front three things were done in the case of every wounded man: he was given'morphia and plenty of fluid, and was made warm, the ■ second of these in order to compensate for the blood loss. Often half an. hour :.; after a man was brought in apparently moribund .he- would be sitting up and smoking a cigarette. He agreed with those ■ who said tha. every wound in this present i; war was septic. The fact that a wound was septic at first made no difference to the care which' should be taken with the dressing of it; the first dressing could not be satisfactorily "applied by any but an expert dresser, though it only meant hav- ' ing very clean hands .and refraining from interfering with,the wound. Pushing any--1 thing into the wound he regarded as an ' absolute mistake. CHOLERA AND DIARRHCEA. ; - k The Asiatic cholera is a most virulent epidemic malidy, which begins—that is to say, f the epidemics have always begun— somewhere in the. Far East, where the filth. and f insanitary surroundings of the labouring-classes are almost incredible. They,are said to have it badly at Vienna just how. In-the worst case a man fell down without warning, and died within half an hour. This cholera proper is the modern prototype of the ancient plagues, and like, them depended upon . unhealthy -living, .with the total neglect of every sanitary precaution to obtain pure -water. and .pure air. We can most of us hardly realise what the conditions mast have been in a walled city of the Middle Ages —the overcrowding, the dirt, the bad smells, the foul food. What is styled English cholera is but .a' pale shadow of the Asiatic, yet results from the same 'essential causes and antecedents. It is always brought on directly by foul water or food, and appears in slums* or insanitary dwellings. It is only ordinary diarrhoea in a *Sry aggravated form; though, of course, the latter may ensue from a great variety i of causes, one of them a bad chill. When • a diarrhoea attack brought on bv decom- j posed* food comes on, the first "thing to be I done is to expel the offending agent. It is I useless, to take medicine to stop-the diarr- ] hoea until that has been done; you only do. harm—it may be serious harm. The j test 's pain. So long as there is abdomi-! nal pain, -something remains which nature is seeking to expel; and vou must oh no j account thwart her, or you will suffer for it A good dose of castor oil, followed b\ warm drinks of milk and water, is the first ' step. Also you have to lie un and keep quiet, abstaining religiously from broth, *soup, a«d.-all animal foods. Then when i6t pain is banished, but not before, you v n»y~rei6rt to physic, taken to §top the diarrhosa,; though if you do not Kke phv- .*?°*- you can generally recover by rest, with milk or milk nourishment only. It ; s also a sine qua non to avoid beef tea v and ' Ito keep lying down. For medicine, opium preparations in some form or other are ; best. One of these is chlorodyne, of which you take five drops for a dose every three hours. But-it is never safe to .give anything of this kind to children without medical advice. Other aproved remedies are'chalk mixture, of which the dose is', one • tablespoonful, occasionally two, every j two or three hours. Another is bismuth", j in 15-grain doses, "very three hours, sus- I pended in water. Chronic diarrhoea, which j i -persists for days" or weeks in, the absence of ajiy obvious cause, should not be treated by remedies at .home. Nearly always it • denotes internal ulceration, or some ' equally serious lesion, for which a doc- ' tor's- advice should be forthwith sought. ', There is danger in neglect. S "° ,