Worth Knowing This.

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 54

Worth Knowing This.

N;.useous medicines nowadays possess none oi' the terrors that many of us remember Avhen " powders " were given in jam and castor-oil in hot milk, as pharmacists have imented no end of ways of giving the nastiest drugs without any flavour at all. Castor-oil, cod-liver oil, quinine, and things of that disagreeable kind are made up in little flexible capsules, which slip down the tin oat like a strawberry. These capsules are also made in two parts ; so that anyone can buy them empty, and put the powder or drug in himself, sealing them, and then swallowing them without knowing that the drug has a taste. Then there is the round wafer-paper, in which can be enclosed any kind of bolus, pill, or powder, and which, when moistened, can be swallowed with ease. Even the grape and strawberry have been turned to account ; and there is no more j>leasant. way of taking a bad-flavoured drug than by scooping out the middle of the fruit an 1 putting in the drug. Pills are now made much smaller than they used to be, and the various coatings render th^ai quite tasteless and easy to swallow. Finally, when none of these devices can b i used, the physician can fall back on gymnemic acid, which temporarily paralyses the sense of taste, and allows one to swallow anything, however bad. i»i taking a pill, by the way, most people get into exactly the position they should avoid. They throw back their head, opening the passage to the lungs and closing the way to the stomach. The right thing to do is to look at the toes. If you got a great mass of sick people together, and knew your work, you could easily separate them into groups, and tell them how o,nd where they lived. This is owing to the fact that various diseases are associated with different conditions peculiar to themselves. •That terrible thing cancer, for instance, h;'ngs around sheltered vales through which fully-formed rivers flow; and wherever you meet with this sort of country you may be sure of coming across very many cancer patients. Diseoses of the heart have also a fancy for valleys, especially those that are protected ir )<i\ the prevailing winds. Consumption loves a dense and damp soil an lan ill-ventilated house. Other lung and throat diseases are exceedingly numerous ■wherever there is much dust, irritating fumes — in cotton factories, badly-ventilated workshops, and among those who work in a stooping position. Diphtheria and scarlatina usually come from milk, and through defective drainage. Cholera and typhoid fever arise from polluted drink-ing-water.

Typhus fever js traced to over-crowding ; scrofula belongs to the country ; and nervous diseases are chiefly found in towns.