TALKS ON HEALTH.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 9 August 1921, Page 7

TALKS ON HEALTH.

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR. [To the Advertiser-By arrangement] HEALTH AND MONET. We live in times of financial stress, and it is meet that I should call attention to the monetary loss involved in illness. As I have constantly preached, the people are careless about their health, but the money side of the question does, I think, make some appeal to the ordinary man. Tell him to take care of his health and he remains apathetic; tell him to take care of his health for the sake of the. money he will save, and he begins to prick up his ears. Health is money. A pound spent at the dentist saves two pounds in illness. Five pounds spent on a reasonable holiday saves ten pounds in illhealth. A sum expended on good loots prevents the expenditure of twice the amount on doctors' bills, A few shillings spent on milk will give you better value than twice the money expended on quack medicines. Try milk for autemia. The total amount spent on illness in the British Isles must be enormous—hundreds of thousands of pounds. A little thought and care would prevent 80 per cent, and all that good money might be put in the savings bank or used to good purpose. The money question must never be lost sight of. “ Health is money,” and that maxim cannot be repeated too often; many of you have not learnt the lesson yet.

WHEN SEEKING INSURANCE. You ought to be at your best when you present yourself before the doctor for'life insurance. I often read reports which say that the proposer is rejected on account of a weak heart, which may be dub to excessive cigarette smoking. The records are kept and referred to at some future occasion, when a second attempt is made to pass the doctor. It always counts against a man that he was once rejected. Some men, anxious to get the proposal through, present themselves for medical examination too soon after an attack of influenza, and the doctor marks him down as weak. You may have to pay an extra amount on the premium if you are not at your best. It is a good plan to go to a private doctor and ask him if you are fit to pass a life insurance examination. If you have a slight cough, he will treat you for it and cure you. If the company's doctor finds slight bronchitis he may be compelled to postpone the examination for six months. Do not go before the doctor with a mouth full of bad teeth and your gums affected with pyorrhnsa; it gives the doctor a bad impression and makes him think you take no trouble about your health.

X-RAYS AND RINGWORM. The X-rays are very powerful, and should always be treated with respect. We have now had so much experience extending over many years of the X-ray treatment for ringworm that the danger is reduced to a vanishing) point. Out of many thousands of children treated, scarcely one suffers any permanent loss of hair. It is a very different matter when you come to look at the question from the point of view of the operator. He is exposed to the rays for some hours a day for months and years. Much can be done by wearing specially prepared gloves and by enclosing the globe from which the rays are emitted in a covering that absorbs the rays. The latest tubes are more powerful than the former ones, and the rays have a much more penetrating power. Their effect is. peculiar, and also tragic. They prevent the formation of the red blood cells, and the blood rapidly becomes poorer and poorer until death occurs. I have lost one very good friend lately as the result of X-ray action. He was skilled and experienced, and it is very sad to think he was killed by the rays which, properly controlled and directed, are so beneficial. It will, I hope, comfort you all to know that there is no danger to patients who are exposed for a few seconds when they have a broken bone or a foreign body buried in

the flesh. But those who are engaged in X-ray departments of hospitals should take careful precautions to protect themselves.

TESTING THE TEETH, The X-rays are being used more and more to reveal the condition of the teeth. The dentist can examine the exposed portion of the tooth; he cannot see the deep parts which are embedded in the gum. But the X-rays show very clearly the presence of suppuration or decay, and afford valuable information that cannot be discovered in any other way. Occasionally a tooth may grow in the wrong direction; instead of coming to the surface in the normal manner it may grow sideways and cause pain by pressing .on the root of thio next tooth. Although the Offending tooth is invisible to the naked eye, the X-rays will disclose its presence and its exact position. ROMPS BEFORE BYE-BYE. Good-night romps are necessary,, for children should not be allowed to have cold feet in bed. A “ good-night romp ” warms them up; it sends them to sleep happy; and I am never tired of recommending romps to daddies. It does the daddies good; it keeps them young; it makes them laugh; a man who is made treasurer of his lodge is so conceited about it, there is no talking to him. It is a splendid thing for him to be whopped on the head with a paper truncheon, just as though he were an ordinary individual like you or me. Every man ought to know how to play at bears with his youthful offspring; what a change from serving in a shop to jump out with a roar from behind the doort A child ought to go to sleep with warm feet, thinking what a lovely daddy he has. Mother is already secure in his heart because she cooks the dinner, but there is something mysterioos about daddy, who clears out of the house and never does anything. Good-night romps are the thing, as Shakespeare says.

THE BODY’S G.H.Q. The power of the brain is wonderful; in fact, the brain is the great head office of the body. A movement which seems a very simple matter, such as writing an A in a copybook, is, as a matter of fact,- a highly complicated business. The right side of the brain looks after the left side of the body, and vice versa. No movement of the finger can be performed unless the brain sends a message along the nerves that govern the movement of the muscles that work the fingers. When we dissect an arm we see a thin white cord running down to every muscle. If a bullet goes through the arm and cuts the nerve in half, the muscles connectcd with that nerve are paralysed. Please, therefore. learn this lesson, that a movement needs the co-operation of the brain.

Anothr Health Column will be published next week).