HEALTH NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1926, Page 6

HEALTH NOTES.

about gastric ulcer. (By a Family Doctor.) Gastric ulcer is a good example of our ability to prevent by sensible precautions, illness, which we find it difficult to cure once the disease .gets a good hold. I will explain how you would set about getting a gastric ulcer if you wanted one. First and foremost, you must have bad teeth. There are thirty-two teeth in your head, all told, and to get a really first-class ulcer in your stomach you must see that about twenty-eight of your teeth are in a disgraceful state of decay and neglect. Never clean your teeth, but try to cultivate a discharge from the twentyeight teeth, so that, sleeping or waking, day or night, working or playing, year in and year out, you are swallowing this foul discharge. This alone is enough to give you a gastric ulcer. Then always gobble your food down; never take the trouble to masticate it, and swallow- it, mixed with the discharge from the teeth, in lumps, which can never bo dissolved or digested by the juices of the stomach. Do not have your meals regularly, but snap up odd bits of food at odd times, and just before your dinner eat a quantity of cheap sweets, preferably those made of sawdust and coconut with a little, flavouring. Tins robs you of your appetite. AN INFALLIBLE PLAN. A further excellent plan to adopt is to drink quantities of tea—strong tea, stewed tea. I believe the best method is to leave the tea the pot all day, and add water to it from time to time. Eat some tough steak with the stewed tea, and the tannin converts the steak into leather. Nover take the troublq to see that the bowles act well—onee a week dr so will be* all that is necessary if you want to know what it is like to have an ulcer of the stomach. And, lastly, do everything you can to lower the general health. Never go out into the fresh air, but sit in a stuffy kitchen with all the windows shut in your spare time. Choose a situation where you have to work in an underground basement; and sleep four or five in the room, without, any ventilation, so that. with every breath, you are taking down into the lungs the used-up air which has come from the. lungs of your room-mates. NATURE THE HEALER. Now let us look on the other side, of the question. We will imagine that you have been dumped in bed in a. hospital, where you are under the discipline, and have to obey the laws of health, willy-nilly. I am not very pleased with you; you must not expect any sympathy from me. It is your own fault. You are occupying a bed and keeping somebody else out, and with a little care and forethought you might have avoided your gastric ulcer. But, when once you have made up your mind to haul down the red flag of rebellion and submit to the sensible views of life as laid down by Dame Nature, see with what tender and loving care she will restore you to health! Night and day, unseen and without hands, she is labouring to cure the ulcer. The raw surface is gradually covered over; the dangerous ulceration is cheeked, and slowly but surely the stomach is restored to a healthy state. And oh! the joy of that first piece of fish after the month of milk and slop# Before you leave the hospital you will have to promise that never again will you gobble your food, or neglect your teeth, or drink gallons of stewed tea, or lace tight, or stick indoors when you might be in the sunshine. HOW A DOCTOR STUDIES DISEASE. I will tell you how a doctor studies disease. Let me take ulceration of the stomach as an example. All over the world records are being kept of the cases admitted to hospitals. There records are collected and published. Having gathered all the facts, they can be arranged, and they yield the following information. 1. Age. The commonest age of patients suffering from ulceration of the stomach is from 17 to 25. Old people may suffer, but young people are in the 'large majority. 2. Sex. Gastric ulcer occurs five times more commonly in women than in men. This is because young girls are more careless about their health than men. 3. Occupation. Girls working in towns and factories suffer more than country girls. Tn general, occupations that arc carried on in dark, unhealthy buildings predispose to gastric troubles; outdoor work is healthier. 4. Associated -diseases. This gave the most valuable information of all the different headings. WHEN WARNING IS NECESSARY. 1 ask myself the question, what sort of person should I be justified in warning that she was -in danger of ulceration of the stomach? The answer is easy after reading the collected records of tlie whole world. First in importance come the teeth. Every person with an ulcer of the stomach was found to have defective teeth. The lesson is obvious to all who wish to learn. Then most of the patients were anaemic. Anaemia is the result of bad hygiene—bad air to breathe, bad food badly cooked, to say nothing of bad temper and a bad husband. Hurried meals, gobbled food, irregular hours, all these lead sooner or later to qleeration of the stomach. Kindly observe in passing that all these causes are preventable. Then these precious records, from which we can learn something if we try, tell us that all the folk in hospital with stomach trouble were constipated. Constipation is ten times commoner in women than in men. That is why ulcers of the stomach are so much more common in the fair but misguided sex.