TALKS ON HEALTH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20058, 22 September 1920, Page 6

TALKS ON HEALTH.

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR.

PROTECT YOUR FOOD. "When you have bought good food you must protect it from 'contamination. Hie few shillings spoilt on a men b safe or a meat cover will be a less expensive outlay than the cost of a funeral, lour efforts to combat the fly nuisance niay prevent the milk your baby is going to drink from being infected by a, fly that lias just flown off some filthy garbage In the street. You imigji't sprinkle a little water to lay the dust tliat blows into the- larder. Cleanliness' at mealtimes must be taught. A child should be _ taught' to wash his hands alter making mud-pies in the street and before touching his bread and butter. If deaths from intestinal disorders are to b 0 proven led wo must have cleanliness, and, first and foremost, cleanliness of tlio month; those foul stumps must he removed at all costs; you cannot expect a. hcalthv body "if the food that is taken into the month is mixed with the evil-smelling discharge that comes from decayed stumps. COMMOTIONS IN THE LIVER. dim story of a lump of sugar would ti 1 several columns of this paper. Hunk of the sugar-cane growing in nu island thousands of miles across the m ean ; ihink of the groat ship carrying Urn sugar in her hold, and of all too hands the. sugar must pass through ansliiji, crane, train and van. The cud ol its journey comes at last when ■no mucii-travollcd lump of sugar is popped in your tea and down it goes, mit the medical student is taught to begin the story there, and follow the sugar in its course through the wonderul mechanism known as the ’human Pony. Wei), the sugar reaches the stomach, where it undergoes no digests o change hut just passes on in to "the intestine, there it is absorbed through too walls of the thin blood vessels, and is carried straight up to the liver. Iho liver may bo glad to see it or not, ns the case may he. if the liver is already overloaded, it does not want any more. But the owner of the liver may b° a glutton and, regardless of toe Jncrs complaints, the extra unwanted sugar is sent along. Tho liver is very angry, and the sugar’s feelings aio hurt, too. “Look here,” exclaims lie lump of sugar. “I have come all too way from the plantations, and T did not expect this sort of welcome when I m-nved; I am a. British subject.- • Yon can g 0 hack to the planrations for all I care,” answers the uyer, • yop are a nuisance hero ” ihcso commotions and bouts of backelm u arc experienced bv the owner of lm liver an discomfort, drowsiness, ack of, energy, the feeling of a cannonnail in the stomach, and other indicatiotis or JiverifiliDCFs. HEAT-GIVING sugar. But, there, we are not all gluttons, ami the sugar may arrive in a liver which is hungering for it. Tho sugar y,-111011 has been dissolved in the blood is taken into the liver, add is stored up in a, solid form. There it lies until it is wanted- Sugar is used to supply tuel to work the muscles; before a rootball match the players would hare a ploiitiful supply of sugar in the liver ■ 7 atter the match tho sugar would have disappeared, Y T ou may know that when a candle is burnt it gives off heat, and it uses up tho oxygen in the air. Light it candle, and put a bell-jar over it. ft will burn as long as the limited supply of oxygen but in a few minutes it will go out; it cannot burn if tlioro is no oxygen. Exactly the same thing occurs in the body; the sugar is burnt and the necessary oxygen is carried to it from the lungs by the blood. As tho burning of the candle produces warmth, so the burning of the sugar produces warmth. It is in the muscles that the sugar is burnt. That is why we feel hot when we run; the running makes the muscles work harder, and the sugar has to be burnt in greater quantities and more heat is generated. A candle that has burnt disappears. Where has the candle gone to? It has boon converted into invisible gas that floats unseen in tho room. And so has- the sugar; tho sugar meets with the same fate as the candle—it is converted into invisible gas. In the human body tho gas is carried in the blood to the lungs, and there it is given out in the breath. And a, strange thing is that if wo analyse the gases under the boll-ja r which contained the extinct candle we should find exactly the same gas as is found in our own breath. If wo were put under a bell-jar we should live just as Tong as the oxygen lasted, and then we should faint and go out like a candle. GUARD AGAINST DIABETES. : You will appreciate that a very complicated chemical problem is involved in tho dealing with a lump of sugar, and you will not Ixs surprised to learn that tho hody sometimes fails to perform its duties. There is no process in the body that may not go wrong at times, and when the sugar-process is disturbed by diseases the patient suffers from diabetes.* Tho sugar should ho burnt up in tho muscles, hut instead it collects in the blood and forms in such quantities that it is.throwu out of tho blood by the kidneys as though it were a poison. When the urine is examined tlie sugar is discovered. In mild cases the sugar disappears from the kidneys •by restricting tho.amount of sugar and starch in the diet. The doctor writes out a list of things recommended and another list of forbidden articles of diet. The repeated examination of the secretion of tho kidneys shows whether tho treatment is successful or not. One of the most troublesome symptoms of diabetes is tho intense thirst. The kidneys insist on throwing out large quantities of sugar; they cannot throw out solid sugar; they can only do it when tho sugar is dissolved in water,' so they demand an enormous quantity of water When a patient comes to a doctor complaining of excessive thirst, the first thing the doctor does is to test the presence of sugar. An examination for life insurance always includes an examination of the water. Men with diaheles must always he careful of their diet and their general health. The resistance of the body to all forms of disease is lowered by diabetes. Pneumonia becomes a much graver complaint when it occurs in a of diabetes. Tho treatment of diabetes is not very satisfactory. A carhful diet chart baa to be prepared, ami by varying the diet and watching the result the best kind of food for cadi individual case can he estimated. ,