HEALTH NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 4048, 13 October 1931, Page 7

HEALTH NOTES

By

R. J. Terry.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS “First Baby” is a member of a family who all lose their teeth at a very eariy age. My correspondent asks what food, if she becomes a mother, she should feed her child with in an endeavour to correct this trouble, and at what age she should commence to feed it. My advice is to commence the feeding the day after you receive this reply. You cannot commence too soon. If you wish to feel certain that your baby will have strong teeth, commence to feed for those teeth 12 months or more before it is formed. If you do this, not only the teeth of the baby but the bones generally will be good, and your system will not be robbed. ‘Therefore your teeth will continue to be good. If it is too late for the 12 months, six or even three months before the baby is born will make a big difference, especially if you find by analysis those things which your body lacks or does not possess in sufficient proportion. Even if the baby is born the defect will still be remedied to a very great extent by the child consuming the proper food. Now, don’t get the idea that all that is necessary is to put some lime water in the baby's milk or to give lime water in i some form. The child absorbs little, if any, of the lime in lime water. The only , good effect of lime water is to counteract I acidity. There are other things in addi- ! tion to lime that are necessary for the I formation of good teeth and bone, but ■ they can all be found in food. If it is I your intention to breast-feed the baby. ■ then you must continue to eat proper

foods during the suckling period. If the baby is to have humanised milk, it may still be lacking in certain mineral salts because possibly the cow giving the milk is running on land which has nut an abundance of the mineral salts. In this case the cow cannot repair her own waste, be growing a calf, and at the same time giving milk twice a day that contains an abundance of bone-forming material. Therefore, it may be necessary in your case to supplement the milk by vegetable juices. " Fruit Salad."—l quite agree with you that the things you put in the fruit salad are fruits, but the fact of their being fruits does not necessarily mean that you are doing the correct thing in mixing them. Many people have the idea that the greater the mixture the better the fruit salad. I fail to see this. You also miss the opportunity of having a variety 7 of flavours as you would have if on one day you had peaches and cream, another day bananas and cream and on other days apricots, pineapples, etc. You say that you mix apples, oranges, banana, pineapple, and passion fruit. Now let us just think a little while and see why you can make this mixture. The apples could be obtained locally 7 and grown in this country. The oranges come from Sydney, the Islands, or California, bananas from still hotter countries, and so on. It is only possible to have the mixture because man has made steamships, cool storage, etc. Nature did not grow these various fruits in any one country, neither did she bring them to perfection—in other words, their ripe stage —at one season. The mixture of them encourages fermentation. Anyway, what is wrong with eating them separately and sampling the various flavours? “Fatty” (Oamaru).—You would be a very unwise woman to wear, especially for a lengthy period, a rubber belt or

underclothing composed of rubber with the idea that it would reduce your excess flesh. You would make the muscles weak, and the circulation would be impaired. It is probable that after tome little time you would develop a rash or other skin trouble. It has to be remembered that your skin is continually perspiring. It is only when it perspires to excess that you see or notice it, but there are about 2,000,000 sweat glands in the skin of the average human which are night and day ridding the body of the poisons that it manufactures. Perspiration is not simply water or moisture. There is a simple way to convince yourself of this. The next time that you are freely perspiring let a little drop of perspiration from your forehead run into the eye and you will find that there is a most decided smarting due to the acid and waste. Now, if you were to wear a rubber belt or rubber underclothing your skin would be perpetually bathed in this acid waste unless you could wash the skin every hour or so, and, last but far from least, when you eventually had to remove the rubber your skjn would be unlralthy and subject to chill for some considerable time. Diet and a reasonable amount of exercise will reduce your condition and at the same time give you increased energy and a general feeling of well being. Talk it over with your mother or some older woman.

“Over Forty."—lt is very unwise and disturbing to your nervous system to listen to the tales told to you by other women of the trouble which they say will naturally come in the years that you are approaching. Nature did not mean there should be pain flushes or alteration in health —that is, for the normal, healthy person. Improve your health in the next couple of years and you will go through the change without knowing it as far as your general health is concerned. If you

wait three or your years it may be another matter. If your body is full of waste through eating too much and through eating the wrong food over an extended period you may suffer from nervous symptoms, have hot flushes, irritability, high blood pressure, insomnia, etc., but these troubles will be really due to the condition of your body at that time. In o 7 her words, you will be to blame, not. Nature. Nature does not want you to be sick or in pain. She gives you pains to call attention to the fact that certain portions of your body want attention. If it were not for pains we would not know that anything was wrong until the trouble had gone too far to right. “Itch." —In all probability the trouble is nettle rash. Some individuals are subject to it, and any little mistake in food will bring on an attack. Sometimes the eating of pork, in other cases t-he eating of fish, and with yet other individuals the eating of shell fish brings it on, and therefore it is common sense to suppose that it is brought about or accentuated by an addition to some substance in the blood. It is an eruption of round red or white elevated passages attended by an intense burning, itching, and tingling. Sometimes it continues in one place for hours, but more frequently it disappears in a few minutes and again makes its appearance in other places. Right diet would naturally correct the trouble. External treatment varies-with individuals Sometimes a warm salt bath will relieve it or a sponging with vinegar and water. Yet others can be cured with a mixture of bran water and bicarbonate of soda. In the majority of cases bicarbonate of soda and water will give relief. If the attacks are very frequent write me again, stating as fully as possible the foods that you are eating.