TALKS ON HEALTH

Taranaki Daily News, 3 November 1926, Page 14

TALKS ON HEALTH

A TALK ABOUT EYES. (By a Family Doctor.) Eyes are worth a good deal more than their weight in gold. I can provide you with a wooden leg, some false teeth, and a wig, but I cannot give you a false eye. If you lose your eye, there is no art'ifiical substitute. Beginning at the earliest years of life, I have to remind you that new-born children are liable to an inflammation of the eyes which is dangerous to the baby and dangerous to others who may catch the infection from the matter which freely flows from the infected eyes. It is "because this disease' is so common that the very proper precaution lias been recommended of dropping a few drops of some disinfectant into tlfe eyes of every new-born ba'by. The disinfectant used is a weak solution of silver nitrate, and such a solution ought to be found in' the outfit of very midwife. It is ghastly to learn that of all the children in a blind asylum, onethird of the number owe their blindness to this disease of the new-born. DANGER AFTER MEASLES. Coming now to the children a little older, we find that measles may be followed by an inflammation of one or both eyes. You know we never say now “It is only measles”; we regard measles as a disease that requires a great deal of care, both at the time the rash is out and also for a few weeks afterwards. And this infection of the eyes is/one of the reasons why we insist on your watching over your children with measles with especial care. I really cannot have you allowing the child to run about directly the rash is gone—(bronchitis, following measles, is a common cause of death in infants. But for the moment I am talking about eyes, not chests, and I want you to remember that thK eyes may be affected by measles if you are not careful.

THE EYES OF SCHOOL CHILDREN, Following the child through Iris life, we come to school age. The school doctor will find out if glasses are needed, and all I want to impress on you now is the urgent need of carrying out the doctor’s suggestions. It makes me weep when I find twenty children in a school suffering from eyestrain, and when I come round six weeks after to see what has been done I find that only four out of the twenty have been to the hospital to get glasses. The eyes of growing children must be taken care of, and I cannot allow a child who needs glasses to go on straining his eyes; he gets headaches, and no wonder- And you buy some disgusting medicine and ram it down into his long-suffering stomach and think you have done your duty by him. Oh, dear! a bottle of medicine in his stomach when he wants glasses for his eyes! You might just as well get him to swallow a pair of glasses to cure a stomach-ache. GLASSES AT FORTY-FIVE. Now we jump a good many years, and arrive at the age of forty-five. The large majority of people need glasses for close work at forty-five. Not for seeing distances, but for close work. As age advances’ you become longsighted. You see 'Granny holding the book farther and farther away from her as sho grows older. A pair of glasses for reading or sewing or playing music will often cure headaches. It is worth while paying a few more shillings to get a good pair! And you must not wear glasses ordered for someone else—it is bad for your eyes and may do more harm than good. CARE OF THE EYES. . To preserve your eyes, sit in a good light when reading or writing. Some misguided folk actually read by firelight—a dangerous habit- The light should fall over the left shoulder sd that the hand does not cast a shadow on the portion of paper to be written on. Small print is harmful to the eyes, and all children’s books should be chosen as much for the clearness of the print as for the matter of the text. As we grow older the tendency is for the sight to grow longer. You often see elderly people holding the book at 1ruost arm s length and throwing the head back in order to increase the distance between fhe back of the eye where the focussed rays fall and tire I! 1 ’ 1 . I*' 1 *' ? man is short-sighted he finds his sight improving with advancing years; the long sight of middle age corrects the short sight he was born with. Glasses should be adjusted once m two years—the eyes alter, the glasses remain the same. Great relief is found when spectacles that were bought six or seven years ago are discarded for new and more suitable lenses. It pays to lave your eyes examined by a specialist; you must not buy a pair of spectacles off a barrow as you might buv a banana. INFLAMED EYES. These few hints on the subject of inamed eyes will be found very useful, isonie cases are infectious aiiS some are not. Ihe infectious cases are accom- | pained by a thick yellowish discharge, lou must not allow that discharge to

collect at night-time when you are asleep; it is a bad thing when the lids get stuck together, for then the discharge is pent up against the eye and makes the inflammation worse. To prevent the lids sticking, smeai- them well at night-time with vaseline or a little boracie ointment; it will do no harm if some gets right in the eye- Remember that this discharge is infectious. If some of that matter that comes from the eye is conveyed into the healthy eye of someone else the healthy eye will become inflamed in the same way. The patient with discharging eyes must take scrupulous care to use his own special towel and sponge and handkerchief; and if the patient is a child he must sleep alone, as the pillow might become infected with the matter flowing from the eyes. I always advise my readers to beware of the towel which is hung up in the common lavatory used by a number of people. There is not so much danger in using it for the hands alone, but there is a real dangler in wiping the face and eyes with such a towel. DAWN OF COMMON SENSE. If a child has to wear glasses the doctor will see that the lenses are correct, but the mother must see that the frame of the glasses is comfortable. A child may leave off the glasses, not because the lenses are wrong, but because the wire of the frame is not quite comfortable around the ears or across the bridge of -the nose. A very little adjustment will put it right. I do hope that an era of common sense is dawning in the minds of parents. The old course was to punish the child for inattention at school. If that did not cure her she was made to go without her dinner . as a double punishment Very sensible, wasn’t it, to rob the child of the nourishment it needed for its growing frame ? YVlren the child complained of a headache, the parents had one idea and one only, and that was to give opening medicine. Surely the lowest depths of human folly has been leached when, instead of providing suitable glasses to relieve the headache that comes from eye-strain, the mother gives a bottle of opening medicine.