TALKS ON HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 3

TALKS ON HEALTH

A BROKEN LEG One of the most useful signs to tell whether an injured leg is broken or not is to test it for what is known as crepitus. Get a bone from the butcher and break it in half, hold one in each hand, and gently rub the broken ends | together; the feeling of grating when once felt is never forgotten. If the bone is injured seriously, you will not ' feel this grating unless there is a fracture. In the case of the leg, for in- ; stance, put one hand above the point of injury and the other, below, take a firm grip, and gently but deliberately move the hands in opposite directions. The moment you feel the grating, stop —there is no need to keep on doing it. A Compound Fracture. Having determined that the bone is broken remember that your first care Is to prevent the fracture becoming compound. By this I mean that the skin must be kept unbroken. The ends of the broken bone are as sharp as a piece of glass, and, if the leg is allowed to hang down, the end of the bone will come through the skin like a sharp knife. The moment the skin is broken, the air finds admission ana, with the air, all poisonous germs that float in the air. A fracture with the skin broken is about twenty times as dangerous as a fracture with the skin intact. Loss of Voice. Loss of voice is the consequence of inflammation of the vocal cords, and cne of the most important rules to remember is that any organ that is inflamed must be rested. An eye that is inflamed must be rested from the light; an inflamed wrist must be put in a sling. There is only one way to rest the vocal cords, and that is to refrain from speaking altogether. Il you go to work you take your own risk, and if you must talk, every word you say irritates the cords and delays recovery. It is best to stay at home when the voice is gone, and in the end more time will be saved than if you struggle on at your work until you are compelled to lay up. The Worst Pain. The liver manufactures a secretion called the bile, which is stored up in the gall-bladder situated just below the liver until it is wanted during the process of digestion. It is in this gallbladder that gall-stones are found. The stones are very common indeed, and, in the majority of Ccises, the patient is quite unaware of their presence. So long as the stones remain in the bladder all is well, but as soon as they begin to move along the duct which leads from the gall-bladder to the intestines, they cause pain. The pain produced by the passage of a gall-stone enjoys the distinction of being about the worst pain there is—it is excruciating agony. It is not always possible to say that the pain is due to gall-stones, but if the attack of colic is associated with jaundice the diagnosis is pretty certain. It is, of course, the highest importance to the patient that a correct diagnosis should be made, and, if it is on the cards that the pain might have been caused by a gallstone, the stone should be sought for in what comes from the patient. If one is found, the case is cleared up, and a useless operatic?, may be avoided. It used to be thought that drinking olive oil would dissolve them, but that is an exploded theory. An Operation. v The shape of the stone is interesting to the doctor. If it is pyramidal with flat sides, or faceted, as we call it, that shows that there must have been other stones for the one shown to rub against, but if the stone is rounded like a pebble it was a single stone, and there are no more to come away. An operation to remove gall-stones is often performed with excellent results. When once a gall-stone has formed the harm is done and if it gives rise to any trouble at all it means an operation. But here comes in the old story that prevention is better than cure. Gall-stones are commoner in women than in men, and it has been thought that this was due in some measure to tight corsets. The liver requires free play—plenty of el- ! bow room, as it were. It is dangerous i to compress the liver, sometimes it is : found that the ribs have been pressed ! so tightly against the liver that the j impression of the ribs has been found j indelibly marked on the side of the 1 liver after death. That is almost cer- I tain to produce gall-stones sooner or ; later. The type of person who suffers ! from gall-stones is the one who eats i heartily —perhaps too heartily---takes ■ no exercise, and is of constipated hab- ; it.. This gives the indication how to ; avoid this malady. Pain a Danger Signal. Pain is a danger signal, Informing • the patient that something is wrong. ! Never neglect or despise pain. In those i diseases where pain is not a strong | feature the patient is in danger of ! neglecting the symptoms. In pleurisy ! the pain is sudden and acute, and the sufferer is made only to well aware that there is an inflammation in h’s side; he goes to bed or seeks advice at once. But in typhoid fever there is not much pain in the first few days, and a man may work with the fever on him. This exposes him to greater danger. In cancer, too, it is a most unfortunate thing that the early stages are painless; silently and secretly the tumor grows, and even if the patient feels the lump, he thinks nothing of it, as it is not painful. If ever cancer were painful from the very outset, there would be fewer deaths from this dreadful scourage. The person suffering from pain should take advice without delay. Necessary Precautions. You must not send the clothes of a

child who has had measles to the laundry; they must be soaked and boiled at home. Books that are given to a sick child should be of the cheap paper kind, so that they can be burnt when finished with. Nicely-bound books or prize-books, that ought to be preserved, are not wanted in the sick-room. The hair is a place where scales of skin harbour infection when it has gone from the rest of the body. A child recovered from any illness should have the hair well shampooed two or three times a week, so as to be on the safe side. Do not forget that the mouth is a source of infection in many of the common complaints ot childhood. It is not wise to let your child drink out of a public drinking fountain. When you are looking after a sick child, do not overlook the prooer hygiene of the mouth. After a drink of milk the mouth should be washed out; a simple mouth-wash or toothpowder must be used three times a day. Mouths should always be clean, and the rule applies with double force when illness makes the mouth clammy and the tongue furred.