TALKS ON HEALTH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12393, 10 August 1918, Page 5

TALKS ON HEALTH.

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR. DISEASES QF THE WILL. Diseases of the will are very common, nnd wo constantly havo to euro patients by mental treatment- When Shakespeare queries, “ Cnnet thou minster to a mind diseased?” the answer is in the affirmative. Tho first task of tho physician is to decide whether the paralysis of the hand (to choose one example) is duo to a tumour of the brain nr to loss of will-powor. If tho former, no amount of moral suasion will induce a tumour to stop growing on tho dolirate nerves. Tumours are pig-headed; they will not listen to reason. It would be a happy world if irregular lumps of hone, masses of diseased flesh or fatty tumours would yield themselves up tn the moral suasion and disappear into thin air like the baseless fabric of a dream. A QUESTION OF WILL. Happily, not all paralyses are due to tumours. ' Every movement of tho hand pre-supposes an action of tho will. -Even in the rapid movements of the lingers in piano-playing, the will, residing in the brain, directs and coordinates 'the complicated raaiueuvros. The linger moves because the will tells it to. If the will is paralysed tho finger is paralysed, but there is no reason wnv tho finger should not recover if the will recovers. It is sometimes enough to win tho confidence of the sufferer and Kay to him again arid again, “ I am sure you can move your hand if you try hard enough.” Occasionally, sterner measures may answer. “ You can havo your dinner if you will stretch out your hand for it.” An emotional disturbance may succeed in arousing the dormant will. Tho paralysed man hops clown a ladder like n two-year-old when the house catches fire, but, of course, tlie doctor who set light to tho hospital in order to cure his paralysed patients would havo to be himself confined as a dangerous lunatic. A FALSE THOUGHT. .1 am afraid the medicine nnd surgery described in story-books is not founded on a true scientific basis. The story of the hard-swearing sea captain who gets a clout on one side of the head, becomes converted to religion, and takes up preaching, nnd then falls down the pulpit stairs, sustains a clout on tho other side of the head, being instantly changed back to tbo hard-swearing sea captain, to the horror of tho congregation—all this is fiction and must find no place in this ‘serious column. It is, however, perfectly true that many a one is paralysed for no other reason than that he thinks ho is. Whoever can dislodge tho false thought from his brain will cure him, be the operator a nurse, a doctor, a Christian Scientist, or a conscientious objector. A soldier who hod lost his voice went to an entertainment and could not help roaring with laughter at the comic man’s jests; lie was cured, and the comic man deserves to have M-D. after his name, A MIRACLE! I am just a little bit tearful at the injustice done to us doctors. If we cure a hundred cases, it is aU taken for granted; if one' case is suddenly cured spontaneously it is recounted as a miracle. Sometimes a chapol is erected on the spot where tho cure of a patient suffering ..from hysterical paralysis took place. It Is very bad for hysterical patients to be made such a, fuss of; and to explain the cure of an imaginary malady by the direct intervention of divine power operating in contravention of alt natural laws is false religion and false medicine. We like to think that the divine operation is present in nil forms of cure—in the cure of mental diseases ns well as in the knitting, together of a broken bone. Only, for some unaccountable reason, tho removal of a false idea from the heated imagination of an hysterical girl has always appealed to tho religious mind as being more wonderful than the mending of a broken leg. 0 5 BRITISH NERVE. You may remember me remarking before that prevention is better than cure. The human mind ought to bo too well(balanced, trained and educated to admit imaginary belief in paralysis, loss of speech, and what not. An in-

quiry into the family historv of these people often reveals that the mother was a nervy woman, that the home was unhappy and subject to violent upheavals. when an air raid is threatened Mother No. 1 remains calm, while Mother No. 2 lies on the floor kicking and screaming. The children of No. 1 will never have maladies resulting irom disordered imaginations and weak nervous systems; the children of No. 2 are hardly given a fair chance. .The Untish people, are lucky in possessing cool, calm and phlegmatic dispositions. wncon.rolled hysteria of excitable and inflammable persons loads them in ail sorts of troubles. Tim medical re-, cords from France and lialv shew o lar higacr proportion of tci cmupianits than found in English hosli^ a il • FI 18 *'-' 0110 ff ( >ed reason whv th.c iJntisn are the- main prop c f the Allied cause, and why it is certain that! wo shall win the war. 'Whatever else no. lose, let us hold on to nm- sturdy lintish nerves, strong and true as steel, and' let us reduce the number of cases ot hysterical paralysis to a minimum. THE LITTLE TOO MUCH I think some people fed seedy and depressed because of the accumulated effects of a number of small faults. One ault by itself seems almost negligible, but all of them taken -.together make a decided impression on vour health ■they g 0 to bed a little too late and got up a little too early, robbing their system of an hour or two of healthy sleep every, night.for years. They oat a little too fast and a little too much, throwing a strain on the digestive organs every day for ton years, after which they begin to feel it. They smoke rather more than i 3 good for them, and they drink a little too much whisky. Oh, I know such people will stoutly deny it, and I quite believe they have never been the worse for drink in their life. But, still, if thd yearly consumption of whisky woro reduced by half-a-dozen bottles, it would do them no harm. THE SMALL FAULTS. They worry a little too much and they laugh much too little. Their boots are a little too tight and their ted is a little too strong. They spend a little too much on cheap sweets and their room is a little too stuffy. There is a list of small faults which many of them must plead guilty to. If they led more careful lives they would not have to pay so many doctors’ bills. All of Us doctors are very wealthy men. because if wo are the first to be called we are also the first to bo paid—sometimes. A CURSE AND A -DISGRACE. There is no end to tho troubles that come from tho softening of the bones: the spine may curve and make the child u hunchback for life; the legs may purvo and remain deformed for ever; the skull may be out of shape; the teeth fall out or remain rotten and diseased ; and, saddest of all, the hones supporting the internal organs of the female sex may bo compressed out of their correct form so that the normal process of childbirth is gravely interfered with, or, in extreme cases, absolutely prevented, Rickets .is a curse; rickets is a disgrace, and yet it is .preventable. I want your cooperation to see that it is prevented.