HEALTH NOTES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5208, 25 November 1927, Page 1

HEALTH NOTES.

THE SCHOOL CHILD.

CARE OF THE HAIR.

(Contributed by tliei Department of

Health.)

Beautiful hair is a great adornment,, and is worth some trouble to obtain. Neglected scalps become unhealthy, and are the starting point of manv skin diseases. Moreover, the hair is liable to infection with vermin.

The following suggestions on the care of the hair and scalp will be found helpful to parent’s : —

Brushing and Combing. — Teach children to take a pride in their hair. Brushing and combing is an important part of the hair toilet, especially for girls. Each child should have its own brush and comb. Children may be taught from an early age to brush and comb their own hair. The hair should be well brushed morning and evening, and kept free from knots.

Washing.—Wash the hair thoroughly once a week. A super-fatted or mild soap should be used in preference to a strongly alkaline soap. Save ends and scraps of soap, boil them, and keep liquid in a jar ready for use. Wet the ; hair well and soap it freely ; wash this soap out carefully ; apply a second lot of soap and rub the scalp well. This second lot of soap should lather up at once. Then thoroughly rinse all traces of soap off the hair with several lots of clean warm water. Finish with cool or cold water, and dry well. It is good for the hair to dry it in the sun. If the hair is very dry and wanting in natural grease after washing part it successfully in different places and rub a little cocoanut oil or vaseline sparingly into th& scalp along the partings. Half a teaspoonful or less is enough to use. (Cocoanut oil is better than vaseline, as it is easier to wash out.)

Dirty hair brushes soil a clean head. Brushes and combs should therefore be washed once a week with warm water and washing soda or ammonia. Rinse in cold water to stiffen the bristles. School girls should wear their hair well tied back or have a short “buster-cut.”

LICE AND NITS

Head-lice are very common. Even the cleanest children may become infected, but; with proper patient treatment the trouble can always be got rid of. The condition must never be neglected, as one infected child readily infects many others. Moreover, the irritation caused by these insects may lead to sores on the head or enlarged glands on the neck, resulting sometimes in abscesses. It. is not sufficient to get rid of all living lice; the eggs,- or nits, which will be found as small whitish specks firmly glued to the hair must also be destroyed, otherwise a fre.sh brood of lice hatches out of the nits in about a week.

Thoroughly saturate the hair with kerosene, cover with rags soaked in kerosene, tie the head up in a towel, or put on a bathing cap, and leave so for the night. Next morning wash t;he hair thoroughly with soap and liot water to get rid of all the kerosene ; use plenty of soap. Comb the hair with a fine-toothed comb to remove the dead lice. Repeat the kerosent treatment the next night. To remove the nits (after killing the lice) .—The removal of all nits is very important. Thoroughly wet the hair and scalp with strong vinegar, and then comb with a fine-toothed comb frequently dipped in the vinegar. Hot vinegar is more effective. If the, nits do not readily come off by combing, separate the hair into strands and scrape them, down with the back of a knife-blade or some such object as the lid of a tin match box. Vinegar should not be used if there are; sores on the scalp. Alternative Method of. Removing Nits. — Take two tablespoonfuls of cut-up soap and one dessertspoonful of washing soda; boil in a pint of water till melted. When cold, plaster thoroughly through the hair, tie up in a towel and leave all night. Wash the soap and soda put of the han in the morning and proceed to remove nits by fine combing or scraping as described above. (As the soda is somewhat, drying to the scalp rub in a little coconut oil or vaseline. See section 1 above.) Repeat this soap and soda treatment twice a week till all the nits are got' rid of).