HEALTH COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 77

HEALTH COLUMN.

SORE THROATS. The throat is a particularly tender part in the human anatomy —tender, that is, in the sense of being specially susceptible to all sorts of external and internal agencies, to heat and cold, to disease of very numerous kinds, to the general conditions of the body elsewhere. Hardly any part more frequently demands attention from the doctor. Scarcely any can be regarded as affording more significant indications of sound or of disordered health. So, again, the varieties of disorder to which the throat is liable are so many, and often so-- grave, that nowhere else is there more continuous demand for all the resources of the doctor’s mccuca.l knowledge and technical skill.

—The Most Common Variety. —

If is common knowledge that a sore throat arises much more commonly from exposure- to cold than to anything else. Who is not sufficiently familiar in his oi her own person with that fact? 1 have myself jumped into a cold bath, without the slightest symptom of any ailment, and have -come out with a sufficiently pronounced sore throat. Here the treatment is of the simplest. Keep warm, and gargle the throat frequently with water as hot as you can bear it. If you are too busy to do this, the trouble will most likely disappear very quickly of itself. You hardly require physic at all, unless your general health is in some way disordered besides. _ . Rather frequently, however, I suppose it will be. Few of us are perfectly strong and sound under the very artificial conditions of the civilisation in which we are privileged to live. People in the city suffer from over-crowding and bad habits of food or drink; people in the country are often the victims of bad sanitation in their dwellings. So it is always safe to take 15 grams of chlorate of potash dissolved in loz of warm water every three hours; swallowing slowly and gargling a little with the medicine as it passes down the throat, so as to come in contact with the whole of the mucous membrane.

■—Tonsilitis or Quinsy. — Some people are very prone to inflammation ot the two important glands situated on each side of the throat, and known as the tonsils. This comes on after exposure to chills, but is also closely involved with some general condition of the system, impossible to define or accurately measure. And most likely, also, we shall find some septic agency to have been at work in addition —impure drinking water or foul air. Sometimes this inflammation will get better eventually without suppuration i.e., under skilled medical treatment. In some people it will rarely end without the formation of an abscess. Always the malady requires the most careful vigilance and nursing. .. Frequent gargling with hot water or milk and water is indicated; and also steaming the throat with the steam from boiling water poured into a jug, and inhaled. lire best medicine is guaiacum, which seems to have a specific action on the malady. Send to the chemist for a bottle of mistura guaiaci, and take two tablesnoonfuls- every three hours. In bad cases three tablespoonfuls may be taken. The mixture is very nasty, and also burning to the throat; but the patient will not mind that if he or she wants to be quickly rid of a very unpleasant —though not usually dangerous —complaint. —Follicular Tonsilitis.— ' There is a variety of inflammation of the tonsil which is always due to a septic cause —a foul dustbin ■ containing putrid animal matter, air from a drain, and so forth which differs altogether from the preceding. The tonsil does not suppurate, but swells, and is seen to be coated with little white spots, the orifices of gland-follicles. The patient feels very weak and prostrate. The malady is often mistaken for diphtheria; but differs in the absence of a continuous white or greyish exudation pellicle. The patient gets well quickly on 15-grain doses of chlorate of potash every two or three hours. —The Sore Throat of Fevers.— In almost every fever attended by high temperature sore throat is a more or less pronounced symptom—most conspicuous in scarlatina. The treatment will be that for the special febrile disorder concerned; and must bo laid down by the doctor called in, as he should be at the earliest opportunity. It is a great mistake to treat contagious fevers without skilled and responsible advice. I have known a well-grown child become totally blind through the familiar measles. I have met with sudden death in young children allowed to play about anyhow with slight diphtheria on them. That, bv the way, is a malady which nearly afways promptly yields to treatment by full and frequent closes of sulphurous acid. It has to bo given with plenty of syrup, and children take it readily. r lhe dose for an adult is a. small teaspoonful (but, of course, freely diluted), every -hour or two —even every half-hour in a critical case. TO HEAL OPEN SORES. Often a swelled leg shows only cracked and ocramatous skin —the so-called “eczema” —which causes trouble by the itching. For that zinc ointment mixed with pure glycerine is the best remedy. Smear on twice dailv. For an actual ulcer, apply an ointment of one part balsam of Peru to seven parts of bonzoated lard, procured at the chemist’s. Get some lint and cut it up into bits of exactly the size of the sore. Spread one with the ointment, and apply it before you get out of bod in the morning. Then bandage as above directed. At night take off the bandage, apply a fresh dressing of Hut and ointment, keeping it on all night with a handkerchief. , It is most important that water should never bo brought into contact with an ulcerated leg. or with any open space. It always tends to prevent healing very materially. Proper cleanliness is to be observed by carefully wiping away the discharge; washing well every week the surrounding skin, with frequent changes of stockings.

—Aids to Healing.—

The more rest the sufferer can take, the more rapidly will the nicer heal under the treatment above. In a bad ease it is best to lie up in bed for a week or two; never putting foot to the ground. But as a rule that is not essential. Ihc malady should yield, even when the patient keeps' about, provided the bandaging as above is carefully adhered to. But standing should always bo avoided—-either walk or sit. And whenever you can sit down, rest the affected leg up on a chair. Take oatmeal porridge once or twice a day. Avoid all stimulant drinks. Go to bed early

If your leg be very painful at any time, especially when the dressing is put on sit with it raised higher than the rest of your body—say with the foot on the mantelpiece, for half an hour. If there be actual inflammation, he in bed a couple of days, and apply a bread poultice frequently changed.