POPULAR MYTHS.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 December 1917, Page 3

POPULAR MYTHS.

FAMOUS SURGEON’S INDICTMENT OF MOTHERS. Surgeon-General Sir Pardey Lukis made a remarkable exposure of popular fallacies in a speech on the new conception of public health at the Young Women’s Christian Association, Constantia, Simla. “One is horrified to observe the profound ignorance that prevails even among clever and cultivated people as regards the true nature and treatment of disease,” said the surgeongeneral. “For instance, you will find numerous persons of your acquaintance who still believe that rubbing the eyelids with a gold wedding ring will cure a stye, and that piercing the ears strengthens the vision; that lunatics are affected by the phases of the moon; that consumption is hereditary; that the application of red flannel (it must be red) cures sore throat, and that a raw beef-steak is good for a black eye; that pricks from rusty nails cause lockjaw, *and that the swallowing of grape stones sets up appendicitis; finally, that measles and other children’s diseases are inevitable, and that the sooner one is ‘through with them’ the better, and that, on that account, it Is both useless and unnecessary to endeavour to segregate the other' children when once a case occurs in a house. “If I were asked who keep infectious diseases going, especially in this country (India), my reply would be most emphatically women in general, but chiefly the mothers.”