HEALTH COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1895, 16 March 1888, Page 36

HEALTH COLUMN.

Exercise in the Treatment of Heart Disease.

For generations the main idea in the treatment of organic heart disease has been physical rest to diminish the labour of the damaged organ. We have been in the habit of prohibiting all forms of active labour to the sufferers from cardiac disease, and the principle of our treatment has been the unexpressed but ever-present idea, accepted as a self-evident axiom, that perfect rest was the best means of securing muscular compensation. Professor Oertel'a experiments and results have come with startling surprise upon those who forgot to distinguish between a useful principle and the exceptions which the multiformity _ of disease renders it imperative to recognise. As is well known, he treats a considerable proportion of cases ot organic heart disease by regulated exercise, especially graduated ascents of mountains, and his results place the value of his method beyond reasonable dispute. There is nothing really surprising either in his treatment or the success which has attended it. A little reflection will suffice to convince us that, while rest is often useful, and indeed quite indispensable, in heart disease, there are yet many cases in which well-regulated exercise will improve the nutrition of the cardiac muscle, as of the rest of the muscular system, and hence tend to the promotion of circulatory vigour.— Medical Record,

Milk.

Respecting milk (says a Home magazine) it is curious that nowhere but in England is it consumed in a "raw" state in quantities, abroad it being nearly always boiled first. Disease has access to it through two sources; from impure water introduced accidentally or othenvise, and from disease of the cow itself. The germs of disease multiply very much more quickly in milk than in water, the smallest amount of infection is therefore enough to contaminate large quantities. In town again, owing to the really wonderful precautions taken by our larger and better-known dairy companies, the danger is practically nil. To enumerate these would require pages. A single fact will speak volumes. In one company not only are all farms, cows, and men examined and protected, but any farmer giving notice of a cow being diseased will continue to be paid for the delivery of milk from his farm as usual, though not a drop is used ; and, similarly, any man who is ill will be paid his wages in full during his illness bythe dairy company. In my opinion, in this important matter, the extra half-penny or penny a quart is well spent when so much unboiled milk is used, especially when we remember that most of the best farms and dairies being secured by these large companies, the smaller dairies are driven to inferior sources. The one safeguard which, in the country atanyrate, ought not to be omitted, is to boil all milk.

New Treatment foe Diabetes.— The Paris correspondent of the London Lancet writes that, at a reGent meeting of the Societe de Therapeutics, M. Martineau reported that he had been treating cases of diabetes for the last 10 years, with almost invariable success, by a method he had borrowed from a practitioner now dead, and had waited disclosures j.n order to be quite certain that his conclusions were not premature. The treatment consists in the administration of oarbonite of lithla solution with arseniate of soda, in rerated water, to the exclusion of other drinks. Besides taking this with his meals, the patient uses the same as a beverage when thirsty at other times. M. Martineau affirms that this regimen has cured 67 of 70 patients under his care. Cream for the Weakly.— Mr Tver, of the Leadenhall Press, writes us as follows with regard to the use of cream with hot milk for the weakly: "The value of cream as a nourishing and sustaining food is well understood; but it is a food apt to disagree. If mixed with milk before boiling, cream becomes partially coagulated : and pold milk with added cream is difficult of digestion. Some months ago, I tried the effpot of good thick sweet cream stirred into very hot milk, that is, immediately after boiling. Themixture remained, as 1 had hoped, perfectly limpid and without tendency to coagulate. Grateful to the palate and easily assimilated, I find, from daily experience, that a full midday meal of this food— at all times, for the weakly, infinitely superior to cod-liver oil---consisting oE a quarter of a pint ot oream, a pint to a pint and a^half of milk, and a due proportion of bread, may be taken even by a dyspeptic like myself without fear of afterdiscomfort.

Old Age.— After 50, though the mind gets brighter, the body gets weaker and duller. The great thing in old age is warmth rather than food. A heavy meat diet beooraes injurious, hence nature gradually extracts our teeth at this time. All shocks, mental and bodily, should be avoided.

Pneumonia.— Dr A. G. Seibert, a German American physician in New York, said to be one of the most competent authorities on the subject in America, holds the views that pneumonia is infectious but not contagious. " Pneumonia," he says, " is a house disease as is the case, according to my belief, with inflammatory rheumatism and diphtheria, jn the www w of the h,Qus,e the gystem is

mace sensitive to the cold, but the cold is only the producing cause. It prepared the coddled lungs for the pneumonia poison which has its real origin in damp or dirty rooms or cellars What is the cure ? Well, the steps to the cure have unhappily advanced but little. But the relief and the prevention are: no medicine and plenty of fresh air."

To Stop Bleeding op the Nose.— A simple plan of stopping bleeding at the nose has lately been advised. Grasp firmly the nose with the finger and thumb for 10 or 15 minutes ; by thus completely stopping the movement of air through the nose (which displaces freshly formed clots) you will favour the clotting of the blood and frequently stop hemorrhage.

Heart Disease and Indigestion.— There isn't a doubt of the truth of the statement of a New York physician that half the casess of so-called heart disease are only indigestion, and more men are scared to death than die any other way. Dyspepsia cause . a pain in the breast and make the heart beat rapidly. The physician advises sufferers to give up tea, coffee, tobacco, beer and whisky — if they are users of these things — eat brown bread and plenty of good meat, especially rare roast beef, and let hot bread, cake, pudding, and pastry severely alone. A powder of bismuth and bicarbonate of soda before each meal, for a month, is recommended. That self treatment, with abundance of exercise, will effect a cure in 19 cases out of 20.

Healthpulness of Oysters.— A wealthy New York physician declares it as his belief that " the oyster is the mest healthful article of food known to man."