Talks on Health

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18418, 21 March 1928, Page 3

Talks on Health

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR

Bed as a Tonic. You are feeling wearied out. and want a tonic? Well, try going to bed two hours earlier than is your usual habit for a fortnight. The extra rest, even if you do not actually sleep, is beneficial. It relaxes your nerves and your whole body to lie quiet on your back, and it aids digestion to rest quietly after a meal, and so you get all the goodness out of the food you have swallowed. If you do manage to sleep the extra time it will do you a lot of good. Sleep is the panacea for ail evils. I ought to add that the sleep should be natural; the sleep, or gather stupor, produced by powerful drugs is not nearly so beneficial and such a sleep may be followed by a headache on waking. Also many of the drugs used for slepeing draughts are harmful in other ways; some weaken the nerves in the end, others are dangerous to the heart or upset the digestion. I am always very careful about ordering sleeping draughts. It is a real calamity when a patient, especially if she happens to be a highly-strung woman, is trained to depend on drugs for sleep —her last state is worse than the fix Ft. A doctor knows when to order a soothing draught, and he exercises due discretion, but the indiscriminate use of mixtures and tabloids to induce sleep cannot be too strongly condemned.

Sleeping Draughts. Tf you cannot sleep an attempt should be made to discover the cause by experimenting. Perhaps you eat too much late at night, or, on the other hand you may have your last meal too early, so that you go to bed hungry or wake up at two in the morning feeling hungry. Some people find that a satisfactory .sleeping draught is to be found in a few biscuits, eaten slowly, when sleep deserts the pillow. I have know’ll cases where the stuffy air has awakened the sleeper early in the morning; the air is used over and over again, and the stuffiness makes the lungs cry out for fresh air; in some houses there is so much anxiety to keep the air out .that even the chimneys are blocked up. Sleep with the windows open. It is easy to say “Don’t worry”; it is not so easy to carry out the injunction. But still some effort should be made to keep worries outside the bedroom door; you can either welcome arid brood over your troubles, or you can make a resolute effort to throw them off. If the sleeplessness cannot be overcome, it is a good plan to try a change of air. If you lead an indoor life, a sharp walk for an hour or two may act as a sleeping draught. I have often found (hat ( reading a suitable book brings sleep

to wakeful eyes. 1 say “ suitable, ’ be cause many books are the reverse oi soothing. I don't want you to read the blood and thunder style of book. Hair and the Health. The condition of the hair is dependent on the condition of the general health. In many cases the principal object of the physician is to ’improve the patient’s health in the confident anticipation that the condition of the hair will also improve. Take as an instance a grave illness such as typhoid fever. The whole system is profoundly depressed; nothing is working right; appetite, digestive apparatus, heart and lungs are all temporarily out of order And what happens to the poor old hail of the head? It falls out in handfuls Then as the patient gets better a fresh crop of new, strong hair appears until the health completely restored, the hair is luxuriant as before. Treatment Good and Bad. The application of lotions and oint ments is not by any means alway. necessary. An anaemic girl shoulc treat her hair only through her gen eral system. Of course, the hair mus. always be well brushed and washed a. certain intervals, but it must not be forgotten that there are two ways Oi treating the hair —one by direct atten tion to the scalp, and the other through the medium of the blood that nour ishes the roots. Do not be impatient; even if the treatment is highly successful, it will take some weeks before the good effect is fully shown. A hair once grown is unalterable; the blood doc not run up the hair as the sap run up a tree. You must wait for the oh hair to fail off and the new hair to take iss place. The Inevitable. Singeing the hair is useless; the treatment of hair is the treatment oi the scalp; to burn a bit of hair three or four inches away from the scalp cannot possibly do any good. There comes a time when you must accept the inevitable; when once the root from which the hair grows is dead, no power on earth will resuscitate the defunct hair. You cannot grow a hyacinth unless there is a bulb to grow it from. Baldness, especially when it runs in the family, may occur very early in life, and it is often verv difficult to overcome. Do not be deluded into thinking that a bald, scalp can be covered with a luxuriant growth of hair. One of the commonest causes cl falling of the hair is scurf. The best treatment is to wash the scalp with a solution of soft soap in rectified spirit. Once or-twice a week is often enough.