GOOD HEALTH

Manawatu Herald, 6 March 1897, Page 4

GOOD HEALTH

WOMEN WORKERS. Brain Fatigue and Want of Open Air Exercise —Precautions and Remedies. In these days of high brain pressure it behooves all women to study the simple laws of health preservation. Not only those who are forced to earn their bread, but also those who endeavor to keep up their sooial duties and improve themselves intellectually, are kept hard at work till the nervous system becomes impaired. Women who do much brain work and are subject to business worries would profit by short rest or sleep during eaoh day, and this is the first thing a physician would prescribe. But the brain will not always submit to enforced idleness instantly an ezoited worker ohooses. For this reason it is best to work off the harassing matter, and, that done, move from the scene of labor and take a doubled repose. Again, the doctors point out the folly of forcing the jaded brain to action by stimulating drafts of any kind and consider submission to nature's cry of exhaustion a wise discretion. This is the common sense view, but wanderers in the realms of imagination—poets, flotionists—cannot always enjoy thia wise discretion, else would half the material for which they have soared or panted be lost to them. The other remedy proposed is to avoid continued brain taxation by a variety of nourishing refreshments every two hours. If we cannot resign work and stimulant is required, it is best taken with a nutritive accompaniment, such as beaten up egg, some of the beef preparations, etc., so that the brain may not be goaded to aotion independently of the body. Fatigue to the brain weakens the nerve 3 which assist in the formation of the gastrio juice, and consequently the overworked are usually martyrs to indigestion. The popular habit of taking carbonate of soda or hot water is pronounced by some health authorities a bad one, it being claimed that, although in extreme oases relief is prooured, this temporary stimulation of the digestive organs results subsequently in a greater inertia. The preparations now to be had, which almost exactly imitate the action of the gastrio juice and contain the active agents of digestionpepsin, pancreative acid, lactic acid, etc — are in great favor, but are probably most safely used under a doctor's advice. But remedies are of no use unless the cause be taken into consideration. Dress* makers, writers, clerks, who are of sedentary bablt, suffer from want of exercise and free access to the open air. They have cold feet and inaotive livers. Naturally a physician will recommend outdoor pursuits, but sinoe these are impossible it is best to consider how a compromise can be affected. The juvenile- practice of skipping, though it may appear ridiculous, is a simple way of insuring circulation and the cheapest. For the liver and cold feet it la an excellent remedy—a physical without a mental activity which greatly improves the appetite. Another advantage in tbe skipping process is the ease With which it may be commenoed and dropped to suit any given period of leisure. It also saves the chance of overfatigue caused by walking nndue distances witb a jaded frame. A Canse of Baldness. The latest explanation offered for the prevalence of baldness among comparatively young men of tbe present day is the fact that men have been, cutting their hair short now for some generations, with the result that its power to struggle on and be reproduced under such conditions has become weaker and weaker until it is in danger of complete atrophy.