HEALTH COLUMN

Otago Witness, Issue 1994, 12 May 1892, Page 45

HEALTH COLUMN

The Human Ear.

The human ear is a much more delicate organ than most people suppose. It is extremely dangerous to interfere with it by use of earpicks, or any of the various instruments used for the purpose of cleaning it from wax. Tbe wax is a natural secretion, and unless the ear becomes diseased it does not accumulate any faster than is necessary to protect the passage from the entrance of insects and various partioles which might otherwise be forced in, and tend to interfere permanently with the hearing. The greatest care is necessary in washing the ears of little children. They should be washed outside, but on the inside only bo far as the finger wrapped in a soft towel will go. The practice of forcing a hair pin or any other bard instrument into the ear passage Is fraught with danger of injuring the membrane and causing permanent deafness.

Earache is a malady of childhood, and causes most distressing pain. The simplest remedy for it is to take a little cotton dipped in warm sweet oil, and put it in the ear passage. A danger that may arise from doing so simple a thing as this is that minute particles of the cotton may be left in the ear.

To prevent this, some physicians advise making a little wad of tbe cotton, and wrapping it in the finest and thinnest linen cambric that can be found, and dipping this in warm sweet oil. la cases of intense pain, a lew drops of hot laudanum or camphor may be used with the oil. When foreign bodies get into the ear they should be removed by syringing them out with warm water. To attempt to remove anything from tbe ear passage by forcing an instrument in is a rash thing for anyone except an aurist to undertake. The best medical practitioners refuse to treat affections of the ear or eye, but send their patients to specialists.

"WONDERFUL TRAINING OF THE EARS.

It is really wonderful in regard to the acutenes3 to which tbe human ear may be trained.

At the meeting of the locomotive engineers, to be held in Cape May during August, an interesting paper will be read by H. H. Dantzer, formerly an engineer on the Reading railroad, but now a contractor in West Philadelphia. The paper will deal entirely with the wonderful manner in which engineers on railroads, steamboats and the masters of mammoth machinery ascertain accurately and instantly when anything goes wrong with the machinery under their control.

Stange as it may seem, the only reliable friend of the engineer is a well-trained ear. The greater part of Mr Dantzer's paper is filled with incidents relating to railroad work, but the really wonderful incidents of which he treats are taken from the mammoth pressrooms in which Philadelphia abounds.

Mr Dantzer's paper tells of many queer incidents of his experience as a railroad engineer. The master of a locomotive gets to know his engine as a mother does her child. In the darkest night, with the train dashing along at the rate of 45 miles an hour, the trained engineer hears a slight sound which is out of the ordinary. He not only becomes aware of it by reason of hearing it, but if he were deaf as a post the disorder would be communicated to him through the medium of the throttle. He would feel a slight jar which would indicate as clearly as the sound that something was out of order, and, if the occasion warranted, a stop would be made at once or the matter would be attended to at the next station. — Philadelphia Rebord.

Deaths from Preventable Diseases. — Sir John Simons, who for more than 30 years was associated with the hospitals of London, and who>as also the Chief Medical Officer of Health to the Local Government Board for over a quarter of a century, has said that 120,000 persons die every year from preventable diseases. Digestive Properties of Cheese.— A German physician has been subjecting the belief that cheese aids the digestion to a chemical test. Chester and Roquefort cheese took four hours to digest ; genuine Bmmentbaler, Gorgonzoler and Neufchatel, eight hobrs ; llomodour, nine hours ; and Kotten-bei-ger, Brie, Swiss, and the remaining varieties, ten hours. In a healthy stomach digestion after an ordinary meal is complete in from four to five hours.

Value op Limb Water.— Lime water is an element not so muoh used as it would be if people realised its effects on the bones and teeth of growing children. When placed in milk, it adds a sweeter flavour even if no more than a teaßpoonful is used to a tumbler of milk. It may also be used for indigestion. When the skin is broken out from poison oak, an excellent remedy is a solution of saltpetre. If strong, it causes pain when applied, but it subdues the poison, Menthol ok Salyoillate of Soda. — Menthol is strongly recommended to relieve itching of whatever nature it may be. It has

the greatest effeot in cases where scratching provokes soreness. This is said to be par* ticularly true of nettle rash, certain eczemas, and the pruritus following scabies, if the itch mitea have been destroyed. The experience of the writer is to the effect that a solution of salycillate of soda is the best remedy for the above named troubles. Either are good, and their virtues should be more generally known.

Cycling as Fbesh Air Exercise.— Exercise and fresh air are essential to health. The man whojspends his days in the vitiated atmosphere of an office and his evenings in the closeness of an. artificially-heated and probably overcrowded room, or in the noxious steam of a place of public entertainment, has no opportunity of cleansing his blood from the impurities thus engendered, or the brain from the waste products for which Nature demands some mode of egress. Such a man becomes mentally and bodily enfeebled, his powers of work and powers of enjoyment are affected, and he lays himself open to the attacks of fell diseases. Cycling, consistent cycling all the year round, is the remedy. — Fortnightly Review.