MEDICAL NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 13967, 28 September 1918, Page 5 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

||g r ■ , ♦ USE A TOOTHBRUSH. bi§. Good teeth mean good health; had teeth. |p' bad health. If only you would keep your teeth in order as a good engineer keep 3 fir' his engine in order, you would consider- §£) ably reduce the cases of neuralgia, facetf ache, swollen face, gumboil, toothache g.: (with its attendant sleeplessness and loss §i of appetite), sore gums, stomach-ache, dyspepsia, gastritis, and gastric ulcer (to f- which a doctor has to attend.) AFTER INFLUENZA. One of the dangers of influenza is ft premature return to duty. It pays to take three days to get your strength back. The days are not lost if thsy are spant in a, sensible attempt to cultivate health. A special watch should be kept for cough, spitting of phlegm, or a pain in the side, and a doctor's advice must be sought if any of these signs persist. Fresh air is one of the finest antidotes to influenza and every other form of disease. The garden makes the best sick-room when the days are warm. Place the chair in the sunniest spot; put a blanket, spre'.;! open, on the chair; then let the patient sit down and wrap the blanket round him. He will come to no harm so long as he is kept warm. The last thing we want the influenza patient to do is to breathe hi--own infected air over and ovm again. If it is impossible to get the convalescent patient into the air, keep the ventilation of the roo'ii as sweet as you can. Once or twice in the day cover up the patient warmly and open every door and window in the room so that fresh air can rush through every corner of the room. Breathed air is exhausted air; exhausted air fives death, not life. INSANITY. The insane are not a class apart. Anyone may become insane, however healthy his brain, and however stably constituted his nervous system, provided only that ho is Rejected to a sufficiently powerful stress. Anyone who receives a sufficient dese of th* microbes of smallpox or typhoid fever may become delirious in the course of the disease, and when he is delirious he is insane. The fact that we call insanity occuring in such circumstances by the name of delirium ought not to blind us to the fact that it ik st ill insanity; but alienists more than any other people are misled by names, and think that tho nature of the thing can be altered by calling it by another nam©. Again, we nave only to administer to a man of the soundest constitution a sufficient dose of alcohol and he will certainly become insane. The insanity will only be teraporrry. It will last only until the alcohol is eliminated; but as long as it lasts it will still be insanity, although we say that the man is "only drunk." The Sroclivity to insanity varies by insensible egrees among different people Some we bo prone to become insane that the least -. little stress, either bodilr or mental, will throw them off their balfji'i. Others are i'%s so stably constituted *\i.j it requires a very ;werfal sires.- *» render them in-. 'fi. ssne; Dut no person is 'mmime from insanity any more than h*. is immune from ,V influenza, or from breaking his leg. BREAKFAST NEEDS. For a child of school age a breakfast well suited to its needs has for its bill 1 of fare relied oats, with cream or milk, apple saiico, bread and butter, milk to .'.'"- ' drink, and an egg if desired, hut not a <v- ' fri'jd one. The rolled oate should be ' - looked in a double boiler for several home, ' or in a fireless cooker overnight. In this breakfast tinsne-builrling foodstuffs are generously furnished in the rolled oats, ' i the milk, the bread and the egg. Energy- ,..'.• giving foodstuffs are abundant in the : ' . irolled oate, the bread, the butter and the •.. .1: "cream. Lime, which is needed for the :. growth of the bones, as well as for other :;>?,'"purposes, is supplied by the milk and the '.;: •cereal.' Iron, which helps to make red fiood cells, in found in the org and the rolled oats. Phosphorus, w': eh ie needed ..•:.',: , by this tissues of the. body, and which also helps to keep the body in good running order, is furnished by the apple sauce, :;v the' rolled oats, the "eee and the milk. ;•' ; ; The apple sauce and the rolled oats are valuable in stimulating the activity of the intestines, and .thus preventing constipation. The apple sauce is also valuable J,'..'.'-.-'.'.'" in helping to neutralise certain substances -:;'- that might otherwise cause trouble. ' i-" Resides furnishing in a simple meal the :.;;.;•!;,. requirements for growth and activity, this vl';"K' breakfast does not overtax the stomach, j a -,d hence draw to it some of the blood , needed by the brain in thinking. [

HAIR' AND' THE HEALTH. It is not always possible to produce a beautiful head of Hair for the asking; some people have coarse or poor hair, and •V ' nothing will alter it. But when we recall 11 that the hair grows from a root, and that the root is nourished by the Wood, it will ;%', be seen how, important the condition of v ;■•/" the blood is. Take an extreme instance, such as typhoid fever, when the patients V; blood is entirely out of order: the hair M '"' all falls off. Arid what is the treatment? ■M\ ' Nothing need be .done to the scalp as ;"'■ the patient recovers and the system gains v strength, the hair begins to grow of its own accord. So you Bee the answer to 'T , 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. There comes a time when • you must accept the inevitable; when once ■ : . ' the root from which the hair grows is dead no power on earth will resuscitate the defunct hair. You cannot grow a hyacinth unless there is a bulb to grow it from. Baldness, especially when it runs • in the family, may occur very early in 1 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 falling of the hair is scurf. The best treatment is to wash' the scalp with a solution of soft soap in rectified spirit. Once or twice a week is often enough. In men this is easily done; the washing of a women's hair is i ft greater undertaking. j AFTEB-OARE OF APOPLEXY. ! AFTEB-OAF.E OF APOPLEXY. The nursing and management of a patient who has had what is popularly called "a stroke"—that is to say, one Buffering from apoplexy, which is the breaking of a blood vessel or artery in the brainrequires great care and attention. Clearly the g/eat thing is to prevent a recurrence of the bleeding, and to do all possible to favour the subsidence of the cerebral irritation set up by the injury, and by the presence of the blood clot which necessarily appears on the stopping i of the hemorrhage. When the patient I. recovers consciousness after the attack, ho j must, of course, be put to bed, and kept i as quiet as possible. His diet must be, light and quite unstiraulating, consisting almost entirely of milk and farinaceous foods. Cold applications to the head, either by means of cold compresses or by the ice-bag, must be continued. Nothing must be allowed to excite or worry the patient, and noise must be forbidden. It must be remembered that anything that excites or stimulates the patient increases the flow of blood to the brain, and runs great risk of opening the burst spot in the artery, causing a fresh outbreak of bleeding. _ Later on, when the first danger is over, it will be time to take stock of the permanent damage that has been done, and to guard, so far as is possible, against recurrence of the attack. Usually there • is more or lees paralysis after the seizure, and there is little to be done for this beyond careful massage, with a view to the prevention of contractions and the maintenance of the nutrition of the affected muscles. Electric treatment is sometimes ' employed with varying success. During this later period the diet must still be j kept very unexciting. Little or no animal food should be given, and no alcohol in. J any form. Strong tea and coffee are better l avoided, but fresh-made weak tea, poured | off the leaves, does no harm. On the ! whole, the digestive habits of the patient should be studied in each individual case, those foods being, given which are found to digest best and with least trouble.