TALKS ON HEALTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 13 July 1929, Page 2

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR THE HAND AND THE BRAIN Most of us are right-handed from habit; there is no intrinsic difference between the two hands and arms. Lefthanded men would have grown up righthanded if they had been corrected by their mothers in infancy. It must not bo forgotten, that the whole arm and hand, and even the minutest movements of tho little finger, are under the complete control of the brain. In writing these words, I cannot dot an “i” or cross a “t” without the direction of the brain. In learning a new action the brain needs as much exercise as the hands; for instance, the amateur violin player, taking his first few lessons, leaps slowly or quickly according to tho quickness of his brain.

A BOWLER IN ACTION The simplest action is, if analysed, so complicated- that volumes would have to be written to explain it. A cricketer bowls a ball' down the pitch. He first of alt measures tho distance liy means of the stereoscopic power of his two eyes. His brain receives the report front tiie eyes, and the legs begin to run; towards the wicket, a hundred different muscles being put into perfect action, carefully regulated alnd co-ordinated. Then both arms are set moving; the fingers clasping the Ball have to be relaxed at the exact moment. A tiny contraction of one muscle at the wrong second will send the ball wide of the wicket instead of at the middle stump. Tho nerves that govern all these movements are finer than the finest threads; they cannot be seen except under a microscope; hundreds of thousands of them thread their way from brain to muscle, and the hundreds of thousands of messages they convey are all correctly sent and delivered. It is a good example to set the G.P.O. THE EFFECT OF ALCOHOL It is a shameful thing to fuddle so fino an instrument as the brain with' a poison like alcohol. The nerves and muscles are all thrown out of gear; no clear thinking,, no accurate movements are possible. The experiment has been tried of taking-vi marksman to the rifle butts and getting him to shoot ten rounds without having touched alcohol for twenty-four hours; then ten rounds after a pint of beer, and again ten rounds after two pints of beer. The results on the target were worse and worse; even a small quantity of beer upsets the delicate nerve mechanism, and diverts the bullet from the bull’s-eye. CAN WE AFFORD IT!?

It is always interesting to watch an experiment. People may talk and talk about what will happen, may happen, might happen, must happen; what-I want to know is what does happen? The Americans have very kindly undertaken an experiment which we ought to watch very closely. The whole United States of America is a dry country. A hundred millions of people gathered from all quarters of the globe voluntarily became total, abstainers. The future will bring a fiercer commercial competition between England and America. It remains to be seen whether the exclusion of alcohol from America will give that country ail advantage.

I always say mine is an up-hill job. Very rarely do I find my advice taken. But occasionally I meet with an experience that gives me satisfaction., It was my duty about a hundred boys who had com.e from a naval training ship. They were healthy lads, but what pleased me most was that their teeth had been attended to; their gums Were clean and red, as they should be ; over-crowded' and misplaced teeth had been removed, and, in a word, all that cleanliness/tooth-brush drill, and a good dentist could do had been done. If these boys had not been under the care of a paternal Government they would have had the so-called guidance of a mumbling and toothless old grandfather declaring that his grandfather never had his teeth seen to. Or the lad’s father, careless, ignorant, and suspicious of allnew ideas, would have simply let the matter slip. Or his mother, too tired to do any more when she had finished cooking, mending and washing, would have complained she had not time to bother about teeth. Well, lam thankful these nice boys were taken away from home influence and, coming under the discipline of a well-ordered service, were rescued from the pains of toothache and its. attendant evils. FRIENDLY FRESH AIR • . ; / '> y ' I want you to' give up your groundless fear of the night air; it is only a worn-out superstition. Learn to love the fresh air and to look upon it as your best friend.: No one wants you to be cold in the night; if the weather is cold even in summer put something extra oil tiie heel; but hold on to the fresh air like grim death, in spite of all you hear to the contrary. A man breathes about fifteen times in a minute, and you must work out by arithmetic how many times lie breathes in eight hours. Every breath robs the air of some of its sweetness, and, naturally, if two or three people sleep in the same room the supply of oxygen is soon exhausted. Do not place your whole hope of salvation from disease in the everlasting pill; what you want for that tired feeling in the morning is not a liver pill which will make you worse,, but a large dose of fresh air in your lungs. It is not only vour lungs that want the fresh air; the air is absorbed into the blood and is carried all round the body to the brain, and all the other organs. It is a. pitiful state of affairs when all the organs of the body are robbed of their due supply, of fresh, air. THE OPEN-AIR CURE An open-air sanatorium is of use not only to cure consumption but to act as an educational centre. The patient is cured by the open-air method, and goes homo to tell the old folks the wonderful new discovery that fresh air is good. Old grandfather wilTshake his head and say: “I do wonder wliat the world is coming to; they said she had weak lungs and they let her sleep in a room with the window open all night. They told me she was touched in the lungs, and they put her to sleep on an open verandah; these young folks be all run mad with tlu\r new-fangled" ideas.” No one, advertises fresh air, because there is no money in it; when my ship comes homo I shall put a large advertisement on the' front page all about fresh air. '