Talks on Health

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17030, 2 May 1923, Page 11

Talks on Health

S By a Family Doctor

TROUBLESOME TOE NAILS. Ingrowing toe nail is a condition which is always “ tinkered” with. You chi}) hits off and dig bits out, and cue \-shaped pieces from the middle, and your last state is worse than your first. 1 am tired of lecturing you about bad-ly-shaped boots, so 1 will let you olf this week; but if you have given yourself an ingrowing toenail I believe the best treatment is to have a little opera tiou under gas. The nail—or, at any rate, the offending portion of it—is easily removed, and in a few days the wound is sufficiently healed to allow you to go about your work. It saves time in the long run. And ily after having it cured, you allow the same condition to occur again, you deserve all get. THE MASTICATION CURE. One of the cures for indigestion is known as the mastication cure. Oi course, you must start with good teeth. Then every mouthful you take must be chewed and chewed until it is like pulp ; most of you swallow lumps v\ ords will not express the gratitude of your stomach if 3 T ou carry out this plan conscientiously. Try it for a fortnight. You have to manufacture bone and muscle, brains and blood out of eggs and bacon, bread and butter. The first, and therefore the most important. process is the mastication of the food in the mouth : if the first process is badly done, the whole digestive apparatus is thrown out of gear. If you want to have healthy children teach them to bite their food, and give them hard biscuits,to use their teetli on. LOOK AT THE SKELETON. Have you been to the museum and had a look at the skeleton? You ought to be interested, you know, because you have one just like it in your own body. Take a glance at the backbone. You will see that it is composed of a number of small bones placed one above the other. Look more carefully, and you’ will see that each pair of bones has a number of points; each little joint is in life provided with strong ligaments to keep the bones in place. Tt is possible to sprain one of these little joints just as you might sprain the ankle. Such a sprain causes a pain in the back for a day or two, but it soon goes away. Patients with a slight accident to the spine are always frightened ; a sprained ankle is an annoyance but not a cause for terror; a sprained back takes ten times as long to cura because the injured person is so frightened. The word “spine” scares him; he thinks it is impossible to have an injurv to the spine without dying of paralysis. It takes me all mv time to encourage a working man to believe that he is not injured for life after a ! slight accident to his back. Look at the skeleton ; the nerve that runs down the spine is well protected: all those nobbles of hard, strong bone keep off the shock oi injury. So-called spinal injuries are often cured by faith healing or by Sequah with his brass ban-.* or anyone else tvlio can persuade the patient to get up and walk about. What prevented the man from walking was not the injury, but the mistake .l belief that lie could not walk. A brass band may cure a mistaken belief if onK it is played loud enough with plenty of big drum. SEA-SICKNESS. I do not think there is any real :ure or preventive for sea-sickness. We all know of the man who made an excellent livelihood by offering to send a sure preventive for sea-sickness in return for a postal order for five shillings. Those who fell into the trap were gravely informed by return post that tlie way to prevent sea-sickness vas*\o stay on shore. The swindler was first cousin to the man who offered to j-end a beautifully engraved portrait of

the King for live shillings. Ibe mugs in this case received a halfpenny stamp, but they did not think the portrait was worth framing. There are many -drugs, the so-called hypnotics, that will deaden the brain and cause a sort of drowsiness which enables the passenger to doze during the sea passage. Often they leave the sufferer in a worse plight, adding the effects of the drug to the effects of tlie waves. It is wise to start the journey feeling as fit as possible; a farewell supper taken the night before with convivial friends will add to the pains of seasickness. The fresh air of the deck is better than the stuffiness and smells of the lower regions. The movement is less in the middle of the ships than at the ends. USEFUL PAIN. Pain may be useful though unpleasant. Pain is a danger signal informing the patient that something is wrong. Never despise or neglect pain. In those diseases where pain is not a strong feature tlie patient is in danger or neglecting the symptoms. For instancy* in typhoid fever there is no pain iu the early stages, and the subject of a commencing attack of typhoid may continue at worL;. if only he had a sharp pain he would soon take to his bed and send for the Cancer i.i another complaint which is quite painless in its first stages. It is a cruel wile of the devil to prevent pain in cancer cases. If tlie first small tumour caused pain, it would be recognised early; as it is, we have to depend upon the accidental discovery of a lump by the patient himself, and when he has found it he does not think it worth while to consult a doctor. The absence of pain deceives everybody ; the commonsense person docs not neglect the presence of pain when it does come. THE CLEVER INJURED. I am interested in the subject of ability of workers who have met with an accident to their hands being able to continue to earn tlieir living. 1 have notes of some remarkable instances of men in saw-pits who have lost some or all of their fingers, and have .vet .been able to carry out all the manipulations necessary in their trade with extraordinary ease. Then 1 saw an old lady whose hands were completely crippled with rheumatism, so that she could scarcely move any of the fingers, and yet by putting crochet needles between the deformed fingers she was able to do beautiful work and earn quite a decent living bj snaking babies’ clothes. It was one of tlie best examples of self-help T had ever seen. Many another woman in similar circumstances would simply have given up. KEEP BEING AN OPTIMIST. T was born an optimist: lam a great believer in the millennium: the forces of sickness and wickedness cannot hold out much longer ; they are being beaten all along the line, but 1 daresay they will hang on for my lifetime. Wo really are getting on splendidly in my schools. If you will believe me. all tlie children have had their teeth attended to, and swollen faces, toothache, gumboils and neuralgia are all unknown. Then tlie paler children are given sometimes as much as two pints of good, fresh, warm milk every day. and thWy simply blossom forth. And as for cleanliness, 1 defy you to conic into the schools any day of the week and see if the boys and girls arc not as clean as your own children. >-\h! ir was wise of the Founder of Christianity to emphasise so often the blessedness of loving and caring for little children. The care of children is the most joyous, the most in suin'n r occupation imaginable. And in all our work, ihe mothers. God bless them ! have helped us like bricks.