Notes for Women

Southland Times, Issue 25703, 12 July 1943, Page 2

Notes for Women

Miss E. Morrison, Janet street, leaves today for Wellington. Mrs S. F. Curie, Queenstown, has left to spend the winter at Auckland. Mrs Marguerite Strang, Lewis street, is visiting Palmerston North. Miss M. Maslin, Greymouth, has returned from a holiday visit to Southland. Mrs W. F. Harper, Tuatapere, is the guest of Mrs D. G. Strang. Wellington street. Mrs J. C. McKenzie has returned to Mossburn after being the guest of Mrs D. G. Strang, Lewis street. FOOD ALLERGY PROTEIN ELEMENT IN DIET People are apt to draw wrong conclusions from something they only partly understand (says a statement issued by the Health Department). A frequent mistake made by parents is to assume that because a child’s asthma, for instance, is made worse by milk, then asthma in another child is also caused by milk. Thus much free, but uninformed, advice is passed around. The cause may be, and probably is, totally different in the two children. It is a matter for medical examination. This acute sensitiveness to certain foods is known as food allergy, and it is encountered more frequently in children than in adults. Often it is interpreted as faddiness, but it is a definite complaint, and it must be humoured. The constituent of the food towards which the sensitiveness exists is some protein element. Thus, when children are sensitive to milk, it is the lactalbumin that is responsible, and the trouble can often be overcome by boiling the milk or using dried or condensed milk. Again, in eggs it is an alubumin in the white of the egg. Wellcooked eggs are less likely to produce it than underdone or raw eggs. Egg yolk, on the other hand, is usually safe for babies. Sometimes the food causes no disturbance when eaten, but when inhaled may give rise to trouble. For instance, rice powder, often used in cosmetics, may produce nasal troubles; and wheat flour inhaled by bakers may cause symptoms—though the same baker can, with impunity, eat bread made from the same batch of flour.

The commonest foodstuffs may produce allergy:' Milk, eggs, wheat, oatmeal, peas, beans, oranges, chocolates, nuts, potatoes, apples, strawberries, lobsters, oysters, pork, linseed, and so on. Don’t dismiss food faddiness lightly; there may be a deeper reason for it.

FOR SETTLING DISPUTES.— The first meeting of the National Negotiating Committee of the coal-mining industry was held in London on Thursday. The Minister of Fuel and Power, Major Gwilym Lloyd George, described the meeting as “a landmark in the history of the coal-mining industry,” and sent best wishes for the permanent success of the new conciliation machinery. (London.)