TALKS ON HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 244, 15 October 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAM.U/Y DOUTUK.

THE LIVING SKIN A considerable part of medical treatment consists of taking baths of various descriptions—hot baths, cold baths, and u host of other variations. It is impossible to understand the value of baths unless the structure of the skin is known. Our skins are not. dead, like a pigskin portmanteau. The skin is very much alive and is something more than a mere covering to the body. Several different kinds of tissues may be seen in the skin when it is placed under the microscope. The skin is really an organ, just as the kidney is. Blood comes to the glands of the skin, and certain deleterious matters are excreted by the skin. There is a kind of sympathetic action between the skin and the kidneys. That is why, in treating a 1 case of kidney disease, a patient may be put in a “hot pack,” so that he may perspir© freely. As the kidneys are temporarily out of order, we can call on the glands of the skin to do a little work to help in th© process of purifying the blood. The Glands.—The skin contains two kinds of glands—the sweat glands and the sebaceous glands. The sweat glands act more freely in the hot weather and much less freely in the cold. The sweat is almost pure water, but it contains a small quantity of salts and impurities. The sebaceous glands secrete the natural grease of the skin; they are found all over the skin, and particularly around the hairs, as they manufacture the natural oil for the hair. In some people these glands do not act briskly enough, and the hair is dry and brittle. Some artificial substance, such as vaseline, must then be u<sed as a substitute. The grease from these glands may go rancid and emit an unpleasant odour if the skin is not cleansed frequently. Ammonia and Sulphur.—Ammonia in th© bath can do no harm. It does not do much good to the skin, but the faint odour of ammonia is refreshing, just as it is when sniffed out of a bottle of smelling salts. Sulphur baths are most useful for certain skin diseases—they form the pleasantest manner of applying sulphur. Baths are not so messy as ointments, and if th© disease is very extensive, the bathwater impregnated with sulphur will find its way to every nook and corner, whereas an ointment could not be so accurately applied all over the bodv.

Nerves and Blood-Vessels.—The skin is very richly supplied with blood-ves-sels, which can be dilated so as to make the surface of the body red and flushed, or contracted so that the surface of the body is dry and pinched. Everyone knows the difference between the appearance of a man who has just completed his century on the cricket field on a blazing summer day and the face of a man in a cold east wind. The difference is caused by means of the bloodvessels in the face. Their dilation or contraction is brought about by nerves, which convey the proper message to the walls of the blood-vessels, and the nerves receive their message from a station in the brain which is specially endowed with the function of regulating th© temperature of the body. It chills the body to be flushed, because the blood comes to the surface and is cooled by the breeze; it warms the body to be made to look blue, because all the blood is kept inside the body, where it is nice and warm. It is curious that our sensations are not t-o be trusted. Whether we are shivering with cold or panting with the heat, as a matter of fact our temperatures are the same, as can very soon be proved by means of a thermometer. The Proof of the Cure.—Every day new cures, or supposed cures, arc being brought out, and claims are made that now at last we can banish this and that disease off the face of the earth. The science and art of medicine are so difficult and so closely hedged all round with obstacles that prevent us from reaching certain conclusions, that I advise you never to accept any theory until it has been put into practice and proved to be as definite a cure as it is claimed on paper to be. Tn the medical papers we are convinced only when a number of cases have been watched hv competent observers and the results tabulated and estimated at their true and final value. The Natural Course.—Tf a. man gets

better after taking a remedy, it. does not. follow that the remedy cured him. Take as an example, inflammation of the lungs or pneumonia. This complaint follows a definite course. Th© patient first of all shivers, then his temperature runs up and remains high for about a week, and then the fever leaves him suddenly and a steady improvement sets in. Now that is the nature of the disease. Th© natural recuperative C orecs of the body are at work all the time, and their victory over the microbe takes place at the end of a week. A number of drugs might be tried and. if incy wore given just one day before the ordinary termination of th© fever, an ignorant observer would attribute the recovery to th© drug. It does not. follow at all if a man recovers from some fancied remedy that he would no!: have recovered much sooner without it. It is only by being able to bring forward a series of one hundred eases in vh.-h the mortality has been reduced that a definite conclusion can be reached. Th© Serum Treatment.—A goo! example to quote is the serum treatment of diphtheria. The records of th? cases of diphtheria are carefully kept, and can be referred to at any time—they reach back many years. Doctors all over the world studied the effect of the . serum treatment, and they found that if the results in ten thousand cases before the scrum was adopted were com- , pared with the results aften the serum ; had been used on the children, the latter were much the better off. Not half , the number died. The mortality was , enormously decreased, and the medical . profession fools now that it almost j amounts to a crime to withhold from a patient the injection of th© serum which has been proved to do so much good. Wo do not claim that diphtheria has beer banished, but its terrors have been diminished, and far fewer children die now than formerly. Nature the Healer. —Most doctors dislike. the saying that we cure our paj tients. The correct view to take is that wo advise our patients to adopt measures which put them in th© way of being cured by Nuture. If a lung is eon- < gosted, no doctor van clean out that I lung with an instrument and remove the congestion. What the doctor does ■ is to advise about, suitable diet, rest, i warmth, correct, temperature of the ; room, methods to induce sleep, and to 1 relieve pain, but the real cure is brought about by the wonderful workings of the structures inside the body which seem to possess some extraordinary instinct to guide them to a cure./