TALKS ON HEALTH.

Otago Witness, Issue 3260, 6 September 1916, Page 57

TALKS ON HEALTH.

HEAT AND COLD. There is a very common idea that one of tho secrets of maintaining good health lies in tho avoidance of variations of temperature It seems likely that this is altogether a fallacy. For one thing, it is an experiment winch is impossible of absolute verification or disprooi. What would happen to a human being literally and continuously kept at a unuorm temperature day and night, winter and .summer, it is impossible to say with certainty. But this we may say. hat people who have, so far as possible, avoided variations of temperature are generally least able to resist the effects of those changes of temperature winch are absolutely unavoidable in normal human life, when they actually arrive. The over eoc'cHed and pampered child is notoriously the first to catch a cold, just as the plant which has been kept for months in the uniform temperaturo of a room or green horse is the first to succumb when piaced in the open air. As a matter of fact, the body is provided with an elaborate automatic apparatus for protecting us from the ill effects of groat and sudden variations ia temperature. But this machinery, like most other machinery, is kept at its highest point of efficiency by occasional use. A function long left unexercised loses m potency, and the physiological processes to which we have referred are no exception. Distributed over the entire surface of the. body are thousands upon thousands of little glaids whose main work it is to assist in maintaining a uniform temperature of the blood, no matter what may be the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. This they do by eliminating from the body a greater or lesser amount of fluid or sweat; and this work is assisted, and, indeed, trade possible by the cooperation of the smaller blood-vessels, which, according as the surrounding air is hot or cold, expand or contract immediately below the surface of the body, thus causing those parts to be supplied with more or less fluid, capable of elimination and evaporation. And it is found by experience, as, indeed, common sense would have suggested, that tho more all this mechanism is used and tested the more efficient it is in working. From this b docs not follow, of course, that people in feeble health should suddenly expose themselves to chilling temperatures, or sit m draughts, or take cold baths in the middle of winter. But it does mean that the path of wisdom Ins in the regular inuring of the body to steadily increasing variations of temperature. Hence the value of the morning cold bath or cold sponge-down, which acts on the body like firm resolution on the mind. And here, too, lies the explanation of tho new discovery that a largo part of tho value of the open window consists not so much in the fact that pure air is thus provided for our lungs to inhale, but ' i the fact that it enables cold air to play around the skin of our face, whilst our feet and bodics*are warm. .SCABIES. That very unpleasant skin disease,. known as scabies, or the itch, is not necessarily the result of dirt or neglect in the individual. It may easily be caught by the most cleanly. It is, unfortunately, by no means easy to get rid of. Drastic treatment is, in any ease, called for. All underclothing should be changed daily, and should be boiled before being reworn. Every morning and evening the entire surface of the body.should be thoroughly washed with hot water and sulphur soap, the affected parts being thoroughly scrubbed with a nail brush. Afterwards, they should be rubbed with a little sulphur ointment. This treatment may have to bo coniinued for many weeks.