TALKS ON HEALTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 12 January 1931, Page 7

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR IN THE DAYS OF OLD Once upon a time there was a strange race of men living on an island in the northern seas. They had white skins, and sheltered themselves from the inclemency of the weather with cunningly woven cloth made from the coverings of animals which roamed in those parts. They had some strange habits and customs. When two friends met thoy adopted the curious plan of seizin" each other by the hands and moving them up and down quickly several times in succession. Some of the habits were barbarous in the extreme. Fori instance, they bound their feet tightly j in leather casings in a pointed fashion so as to compress and distort the toes. LEARNING A LESSON A black man from a far country visited this strange island, and asked why they should thus squash their toes. “Ah,” replied the men with whito skins, “that is Civilisation.” “Oh,” said the black man, “I do not like your Civilisation; he is a strange God whom I will not worship.” The black man being of an inquiring nature asked for more descriptions of the customs and habits of the fair-skinned people. He discovered that they thrust large quantities -of food into their insides, particularly at their quaint religious festivals. In the winter the great festival is celebrated by the eager consumption of largo quantities of a certain kind of pudding made with plums and of the meat of wild cattle roasted. “Ah!” said the dark-skinned individual, “I once put too much food in my inside, hut I have a wooden god with large, painted staring eyes, and sea-shells for teeth, in my village, and he sent me pains, and so now I never eat too much out of respect and fear for my wooden god.” “That is your ignorance because you are a heathen,” said the white people. “We have no wooden gods, and so ,we can thrust as much food as we like into our insides.” THE BLACK MAN’S PARABLE The black man also learnt that many men ran up and down the island speaking much to the inhabitants, and telling them that they did drink too much, but none of them told the people they did eat too much. And the black man silently wondered. Many medicine men did he see as lie wandered through the land. They had strange, long, round shining, hats, wisps of hair at the sides of their faces, and garments made long, and of black cloth. They taught the dwellers in this strange land how wrong it was to eat much goose at one feast and too much of the cake mado in a flat pan at another feast, and so on; but the voice of these good men Was not heard. The black man who had ventured into the Island of the People was made unhappy at the sight of a number of little children with crooked legs and bent hacks. Never having seen such a dreadful sierht before, he fell to crying; it made his heart ache. In his own land the little black children ran about on the seashore and played in the beautiful fresh air all day- long,, and they had good fresh fruit to eat plucked from the trees, and tliey v npver grew up with curved hacks and deformed limbs. And the black man could not understand why he was called a heathen and a savage by the fathers and mothers of deformed children.

MOTHER NATURE THE BEST It also happened that he met some men clad in black. They told him they were coming to his land. “What for?” said the black man. “To bring you the blessings, qf Civilisation,” answered the ’black-coated gentlemen. “Oh,” said the black man, “then I’m off.” And he ran back to his own country as fast as he could go, and told his friends and the leaders, of the tribes about the wicked folk he had met; and preached to them on the need of avoiding the crimes of the White Folk. THE INFLUENCE OF LIGHT In the medical papers now you will see many articles written on the value of light as the remedial agent. This is a profound truth, but it will not be popular. The only remedy any of us care about is something out of a bottle that looks nasty, smells nasty, and tastes nasty, and is nasty. The man who stands up in the market place to declare the value of light will have no one but a sparrow for his audience. The quack over the way with his two-and-sixpenny bottles of stuff is making -tt roaring fortune. “No, no, my dear doctor, you will not convince us that light is a good thing.” Nevertheless, ,1 shall go on trying. My whole life is ith uphill struggle. Look at Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield. I doubt if even an Australian aborigine would be so silly as to cover his village with a pall of black smoke so that the blessed rays of the sun could not penetrate. I blush to think what the angels in heaven must think of us. The sun would shine, only our manufacturers raise a black smoke which prevents it. The men,.who are too stupid to ijndersland the value of light, and contemplate with indifference the ill-health of the children in the Black country, must have a terrible fate in store for them in the next world. Perhaps tlieir disembodied spirits are sent back to live in Manchester. ... - i CHILDREN AND MOTORING Do not take children motoring. It is far better for them to run about. They easily got cold; their little limbs are cramped. The wind hurts their eyes, and the wild rush through the streets does them no good. Oh, yes, I know I am old-fashioned. One day you will send your children up in an aeroplane with their nurse instead of letting them run in the park. Again, I shall protest, and again I shnll be ignored. And there are still submarines left. You might try a nice trip in a submarine to bring back the roses to the child’s cheek. But in the long run you will find the simple plan of sending the child to run about in the recreation ground will be best.