HEALTH NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 14

HEALTH NOTES.

By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E.

TROUBLES OF THE SPRING TIME

I have referred in this column to the habit of our ancestors who regarded it as an essential part of their health programme to be bled regularly every spring. As we are emerging from spring into summer it may be proper in the present article to say a few words about some superstitions regarding health at this period of the year, which are as erroneous in their way and nature as was the old idea that removal of blood from a healthy -person was a necessity for the maintenance of physical well being. - Readers of this column have of late days apparently - been interested in the question whether or not any special means should be taken to cause them easily to make what one reader expresses as “the transit from the spring to the summer season.” I am well aware of the existence of certain views, indeed, one may call them superstitions, regarding this matter. I know, for example, that many persons feel it incumbent upon them to deluge themselves with aperient medicines at this season of the year. Whether or not what one may call the idea -of spring cleaning practised in the household is to be extended to our bodily possessions I hardly know; but it would almost seem as if this were the case, having regard to the frequency with which one hears people talk about a course of “spring medicine.” HOW SPRING TROUBLES ARISE.

I need hardly say there is no jurisdiction. whatever for the idea that the human body requires a literal drenching with drugs at any season of the year, in the absence of definite disease. I presume the idea is really the remaining fragment of some superstition or other connected with the change of the season. The human body possesses undoubtedly a very marvellous power of adapting itself to its surroundings, these surroundings not merely including changes of climate, but also changes of food, occupation, and other details. It may be said, indeed, that this power represents one of the chief glories of humanity, and I should go the length of saying that, applied very widely, the power of adapting ourselves to a new environment easily and readily lies at the root of all success in life, physical and mental. If there be any special rules which require to be observed and carried out at the present season of the year. I would strongly suggest that these should take the direction of a plain, commonsense arrangement of such details of existence as are included in the topics of food and clothing. If illnesses are apt to abound in the spring season more particularly, I think we may reasonably" account for their existence on the plain principle that people are given to make changes in clothing in the direction of lightness in too hurried a fashion. The old proverb, not to cast a “clout” till spring is well out, has reason on its side, and I daresay, not merely long before November has come to an end, but in the preceding month, especially if the weather be favourable, many of us are tempted to make undue changes in the shape of lightness. When a cold wave passes over us'we are then placed in the position of being affected by a chill, hence illnesses arise affecting the lungs or producing rheumatism, neuralgia, or other ailment. My view here is that undoubtedly if illnesses are more apt to attack ns in spring than at other times, they are really the effects of our own carelessness. SOME POSSIBILITIES. The plain, practical advice which may therefore be given regarding so-called spring ailments is that of simply exercising additional care in the matter of all the details of our lives. In New Zealand you have to encounter a considerable portion of weather changes, net merely during spring, but also in summer. Thus it is of extreme importance that you should endeavour as far as possible to avoid any untoward effects which might arise from the changes of temperature. One of my correspondents makes the remark that he himself, alongr with others of his acquaintance, experience a certain amount of weakness and lassitude in the change between the seasons. I am not bigoted enough, I hope, to doubt the reality of my correspondent’s sensations and symptoms, and it may well be that whilst my views of spring illnesses just expressed hold good, there may be some of us who, in the passage from one season to another, ai'e liable to be affected in the manner described. I know at least one person who is affected by a general sense of weakness in the spring time, and who complains more especially of what he is pleased to term a kind of “grogginess” of the legs. He states that' he feels as if his legs were giving way under ihm, and were incompetent to support the weight of his body, or to discharge their proper functions in locomotion. I do not doubt that some of us may feel the change of

season more than others. My argument rather is that for the majority of us spring illnesses are explained, not because we are specially liable to be affected by the advent of spring or summer, but because we have really erred in some detail connected with the regulation of our existence. COMMON-SENSE TREATMENT. If it be the case that springtime is attended l with any special risks to health then at least we are on safe ground when we reflect that such ailments must be treated according to the common-sense processes which guide us in dealing with illnesses otherwise caused. Many cases receive great benefit from a change of air and the employment of a tonic. If it he not possible that change of air can be had’, at least it is easy to take a tonic, which, aided by a certain amount of rest, will no doubt have the effect of restoring the body to its natural condition. I have frequently recommended in this column an excellent tonic, suitable for rundown persons, in the shape of a teaspoonful of compound syrup of hypophosphites, taken in a wine-glassful of water thrice daily, after meals. Some persons find the tonic to agree with them better if taken, say, an hour before food. Sometimes a tonic composed of a drachm and a half of citrate of iron and quinine, two ounces' of tincture of orange" feel, and water up to six ounces will act favourably, the dose of this mixture being a tablespoonful thrice daily, to he taken an hour before meals. Where a pill is required it may be made of citrate of iron and quinine and gentian, of each half-a-drachm. This amount to be mixed and divided into twelve pills, one of which may be taken twice a day, an hour before meals.