MEDICAL NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1749, 13 September 1905, Page 51

MEDICAL NOTES.

SOME DANGERS OF SEA BATHING.

Never bathe until at least two hours after a substantial meal (says a writer in the July "World and 1 His Wife"). The reason for this is that a plunge into cold water while digestion is actively proceeding is most likely to arrest it suddenly } and this may be followed by very grave consequences. Remember that there is an intimate sympathy between the stomach and the brain; and when the process at work in the stomach is brought to a sudden standstill there may be a reaction injuriously affecting the brain. Many cases of drowning, supposed to be caused by the victim being attacked with cramp, are really the result of his having had a seizure, or "fit,” in the water. If this should occur to a person when out of his depth, he sinks to the bottom like a stone. Never bathe when very tired, depressed, or chilly, oecause in these conditions a good reaction is not likely to follow, and the body remain© chilled, instead of experiencing a glow of warmth. The fact of remaining chilled after sea-bathing indicates one of two things; either that you have stayed in too long, or that cold bathing does not agree with you, and should! be discontinued. Never stay in the water until your teeth begin to chatter and your fingers become stiff and livid. Many people who would be greatly benefited by a sea bath of five minutes’ duration make themselves ill simply because they stay in the water too long. Never urge or drive children into the water against their will. Let them get used to the idea of bathing, and they will gradually learn to love it. Forcing them into the water, while they scream with terror- —a spectacle, unfortunately, often seen on our beaches in summer—not only engenders a. detestation of bathing, but- sometimes does permanent injury through the severe shock it causes to the nervous system. The delusion that, sea-water doesn’t give cold is accountable for much. A chill may he caught by a wetting from sea-water. There is a certain stimulation to the skin from salt, no doubt, but that does not prevent chills from indiscriminate exposure to wetting by salt water; and chills are fertile causes of illness. Chill to the lower part of the body ia always dangerous to any one. It is much more so to a child than to a grown person, though many people seem to think the reverse is the case. Most of us know that chills to the legs and feet may cause coughs, chest cold. Bore throats, diarrhoea, and rheumatism; but many people do not know that chills of this kind—exactly the kind that children are exposed to while paddling—are a common cause of kidney disease, of stomach catarrh, and of various forms of indigestion. That paddling may bring on a fatal illness by causing severe abdominal chill is perhaps a new idea to some. It ia an undoubted fact, however, and one to whidh every doctor practising at the seaside can bear testimony. THE PREVENTION OF BLINDNESS. That is by no means an uncommon idea on the port of the public which regard blindness as a condition incapable of being prevented. Many persons labour under the delusion that a person ia necessarily born blind, and that if blindness comes on later in life, as it do, it is again incapable of being prevented by the exercise of medical drill. There is no denying that cases of blindness are apt to occur from disease effects in the eyes of grown up persons, but I do not hesitate to say that if medical advice were sought whenever symptoms of eye troubles begin to appear a large number of such cases would not proceed to the extreme degree of causing absolute loss of sight. . Then, again, many persons affected with curable cases of eye disease, which tend to weaken the sight, delay seeking proper advice, on the idea that their trouble may improve, and they also place themselves frequently in the hands of mere opticians or spectacle makers, who, as often as not, are untrained men, whose only business it is to sell spectacles, and who in many cases, I am sorry to say, sell glasses which are not suitable for the cases in question. I do not here allude to the trained optician, but the safest plan for any reader to follow who suffers from any affection of sight is at once to place himself in the hands of a specialist, whose life’s work is to study and to treat diseases of the eye. Our eyes, along with our ears, are such important organs, that the slightest affection of either deserves instant attention if we are to retain their important functions.—Dr Andrew Wilson