HEALTH COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3224, 29 December 1915, Page 73

HEALTH COLUMN.

By A FAMILY DOCTOR.

WATER AS A COSMETIC.

A sew book waft published the othcr_ day on diseases of the akin and I opened it in the hope of discovering the latest views on cosmetics and lotions that I might convoy them to you. And in the hist few lines I read, ‘ Water is the best cosmetic for the face.” That sounded very dull and uninteresting, and not at all the sort of thing you wanted to hear. I should have been glad if the specialist who wrote the book could have found something more likely to arrest our attention. The action of plain water on the face is to stimulate the circulation. You know how your face glows when it has been rained on or when the spray from the waves has been beating on your cheeks. That brisk circulation carries an abundant supply of fresh blood to the skin of the face, and also carries away with it the waste products that are formed in the skin. The nerves, too, are pleasantly stimulated by the fresh, cold water, and that is beneficial. —Action of the Skin. — Then we must not forget that the skin is alive and active and growing all the time, and its action is throe-fold. First of all, dry scales are constantly being shod from the surface and fresh ones grow up from below. Tins excellent arrangement preserves the skin; if the new, hard scales did not grow' up, the skin would soon be. w'orn through like an old carpet. Secondly, the greaseglands arc secreting the natural grease of the skin. The well-known lanoline is the grease obtained from the skin of sheep. And, thirdly, the sweat glands are pouring out sweat. The sweat is always being given out, but it only becomes visible w'hen it collects in drops. —Cold-water Douches. — Now', all these throe things—dry scales, grease, and sweat —mix with the dust and smuts of the atmosphere and form a sort of sticky paste that stops up the openings of the little glands, prevents their free action, and makes the skin spotty and unhealthy. We can now understand what the water does. It cleans away the excess of all the excretions of the skin and removes the little plugs that arc stopping up the pores. Wo see the bad result of failing to remove these plugs in a face that is covered with blackheads. The blackhead is black because the air we live in is so dirty. If you had an apparatus for sucking air through cotton-wool, the wool would soon bo as black as your hat. So, in future, we w'ill try the experiment of frequent coldwater douches for improving the complexion. THAT COUGH. The action of coughing is a violent expiratory effort to expel some foreign body from the wind-pipe. The said foreign body may bo a crumb that has gone clown the wrong way. The only way to get rid of it is_ to send a sudden rush of air up the windpipe to blow it out, and that is done by a cough. In the same maimer, a collection ff mucous must be blown - out of the winclpipo_ to clear the way for the fresh air to get into the lungs. The only use in coughing is to cough something up. All this brings us to the conclusion that if there is nothing to bo coughed up it is no use coughing This lesson will never bo learnt. —Don’t “ Bark.”— A hard, dry cough is made worse by the constant barking of the patient. The coughing is useless and should bo restrained. The coughing one hears in church or in the theatre is unnecessary. In these dry coughs, the lining of the wind-pipe is rod, raw, and inflamed, and the rasping action of the cough only makes it worse. The loss you cough, the sooner you get well. In sanatoria for consumption this rule is strictly enforced, and the amount of coughing can be reduced 75 per cent., greatly to the comfort of all. Cough up crumbs and cough up mucus; hut you will be heavily fined if you “hark.” OASES OF SHOCK. Tin’s war, with its high-explosive shells, has given the doctors many opportunities of observing oases of mental shock apart, from any physical injury. The shock has many cunoMi c-fieete. Sometimes the speech is lost; sometimes a limb is paralysed; perhaps the sight may go. The cause in every case is the same. The brain is a very delicate organ, a rather more sensitive structure than an 81-ton gun. It is not surprising that a mental shock following an accident in 'which a soldier is lifted over a house and buried in the mud on the other side should result in some temporary disturbance of that bundle of nerve-fibres wc call the brain.

—“ Miraculous ” Cures. — Happily, all that is required is peace, rest, good feeding, freedom from injudicious Sriends, and time. Appropriate medical treatment is given to each case. It is, indeed, a joyous occasion to everyone when a man who came from Franco paralysed walks round the ward. We doctors are duffers not to boom our cases as miracles. The priests at Lourdes publish their miracles; the Christian Scientists do not forget to tell us when they got one case of a paralysed limb regaining its power; and the witch-doctors of Heathendom do the same. But we have to go plodding along in the same dull old fashion without any advertisement. Wo are a poor lot—no Wonder we are down-trodden. WARNING AGAINST OVERWORK. There are some who think they can best serve their homo or their country by taxing their strength beyond its powers. Work has to be done, the sick ones have to be nursed, rent has to bo paid, and most of us have to work hard. But I have to lodge a protest against the voluntary assumption of tasks which the body is not able to cope with. A wise man knows the limit of his physical resources and keeps within it. Here am I having to treat men who are suffering from exhaustion, and there is nothing for it but to order rest to prevent a more serious breakdown. The man who works steadily and reasonably for six months, taking care of himself, has done far more for his homo and country than the man who works with feverish energy for three months and then collapses. It you want to get the best of yourself, take time off to recuperate, and cultivate some hobby which will take your mind off your work when you do get away from it. In a sentence : Work hard, but do not overwork. SOME RULES OF HEALTH. To .cure indigestion and constipation keep to the following rules for six months. You will be pleased and astonished at the happy result: 1. Pay for your wife to have cooking lessons. 2. Cut your meat up fine on the plate and cat very slowly. 3 Examine your grinders in the lookingglaSv., and act accordingly if you find them deficient. 4. Keep your mouth and teeth much cleaner than your door-step or your boots. The latter should be cleaned once a day, but your teeth twice a day. 5. Drink a large tumbler of hot water night and morning. 6. Rely on natural aperients, such as fruit flg s ! prunes, and apples,—brown bread and honey, porridge, and water. 7. Exercises that compress the liver and abdomen, performed in the morning aftc; your cold bath, are highly beneficial.