TALKS ON HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 35, 10 February 1934, Page 3

TALKS ON HEALTH

(By A FAMILY DOCTOR). CARE OF CONVALESCENTS. More skill is needed in watching the convalescence of a patient than in treating him at the first onset, when he is acutely ill. There comes a time when the doctor says that all danger is past, and all that is needed is careful nursing and feeding for a few weeks. The secret of success is to graduate the amount of liberty allowed. On the first day of convalescence the patient may bo given two hours in a chair then four hours for a couple of days, then a little walk once round the room, and so on. The best guide is the pulse-rate. If after a short walk the patient looks a little pale and breathless, and the pulse-rate mounts up, that is an indication that the patient’s small amount of strength has been used up, and it will be necessary to go easy for two or three days. A Watchful Nurse. The nurse or relative generally knows better than the patient who may be young and foolish, or old and obstinate. The attendant must be constantly on the alert. This patient is too anxious to get well, and needs restraint; that patient lacks perseverance, and must be encouraged to do more. The same rule applies to food. The two classes of invalids will again be met with—those who want to eat too much and fill themselves up with wind and lie awake half the night suffering from indigestion, and those who require to be pressed to eat in order to give them strength. What a blessing a good nurse is! And what a sad thing when recovery is delayed simply because the patient is being half-starved on a far too restricted diet. The golden rule is a steady gradation. Five Minutes’ Rule for Visitors. When you have carefully arranged diet and gentle exercise you will have to regulate the number of visitors, and the time they stay. That requires great tact. It is best to stipulate an exact time, say five minutes. Clear out of the room, and say you will tap on the door in five minutes as a sign that the interview must terminate. If Mrs. Brown is an exhausting sort of person and leaves the invalid prostrate after her visit, you must keep her out next time she comes. Never be rude to anyone; just greet her with charm and courtesy and say you are so sorry, but the dear invalid is enjoying such a refreshing sleep that it would be a shame to wake her. Insect Pests. The insect world has been accused of many crimes, and every year the little pests are found guilty. ‘The worst of it is that they do not appear to be ashamed of themselves. I am afraid it is no good appealing to the honour of a louse or the better feelings of a mosquito. Wo shall have to go for them tooth and nail. The human race is really very stupid. One concentrated effort would exterminate many of our insect pests once and for all. Insects appear to think that they can live on human beings without paying rent or income- tax, and it is time they were disabused of their complacent, ideas. Seen under the microscope, that nasty little creature, the scabies insect. shows legs and claws, and, unless I am much mistaken, a villainous leer on his ugly face. The Scabies Insect. Now, every doctor knows how to settle his little game for him. There are certain things the scabies insect loathes, and it is our duty to shove down his throat exactly those things. The first thing he dislikes is cleanliness. No well-brought-up body insect can understand how anybody can object to his presence; personal hygiene is beqonw the comprehension of all insects and some human beings. Clean linen, well-aired mattresses, frequent baths, soap and water, all these turn a scabies insect pale with horror. But ordinary washing will not remove them entirely because, as I. have explained, he is not on the surface of the skin but hidden in little burrows, which can be seen with a magnifying glass. The application that annoys him most is sulphur mixed with grease in the form of sulphur ointment. The Use of Ointment. The sulphur ointment docs its work better if it is used after the pores of the skin have been opened by a hot bath. Three hot baths on three successive days will destroy the insects. If a few spots of itching remain the sulphur ointment may be applied locally. I’ay special attention to the spaces between the fingers. One word of warning. Do not continue the use of the sulphur after three or four days unless under proper advice. If you rub sulphur violently into the skin it will itself cause a sort of eczema. A Word to Mothers. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to compile a list of extinct diseases. Have you ever been to a natural history museum and seen a skeleton of a Plesiosaurus or an Ichthyosaurus, or some other saurus. with a body about as big as a motor-’bus? Well, they are extinct, done for, wiped off the face of the earth for ever, never to return. Now, do give me the chance to mount a specimen of a scabies insect, and point to it as the last of the Mohicans, the sole remaining member of its tribe. It would be a triumph. You can do it if you try. As this complaint can be handed on from a dirty person to a clean person, you have my permission to say or do anything you like to the dirty people. Attack them in every way you know how. Denounce them, report them, jump on them, do anything. until public feeling makes them ashamed of themselves. And if you find in the schools that some mothers send their children with the itch to sit next to your nice clean darling, make it hot for the offending person. Do not take it lying down. Up, mothers, and at ’em! The Effect of Alcohol. The heart is, of course, very susceptible to emotion. Anxiety makes the heart beat faster; the flutter of a beloved petticoat sends the pulse-rate up; the heart acts feebly in times of depression and misery. Therefore, v.x? ought, for the sake of our hearts, to

maintain a cheerful and .steady temperament. A man who flies into a temper over trifles a dozen times a day throws a heavy strain on the heart; it is a very expensive habit to keep a bad temper. When the bloodstream is sluggish the whole body feels out of gear. A. healthy, brisk action of the heart has a most encouraging effect on the mind and spirits. This is the secret of the cheering effect of alcohol: It makes the heart beat faster. The only trouble is that the heart, having obliged you by beating fast for an hour or two. demands a period of quiet and rest’ to make up for it afterwards, and the aftereffect lets the man down to a deeper level than he started from before he took the alcohol. Then he wants a larger dose of alcohol to pick him up again, and the larger dose afterwards lets him down lower still. The stomach which receives the food as it is swallowed, is quite close to the heart, and when it is distended with wind the heart is pressed against it and its action. disturbed, hence the treatment of palpitation is to pay no attention to the heart but to direct the treament to the digestion. In these cases look after the stomach, and the heart will take care of itself.