TALKS ON HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 47, 25 February 1939, Page 3

TALKS ON HEALTH

ABOUT THE KIDNEYS The function of the kidneys is to examine the blood that passes through them and throw out what is useless or poisonous. The kidney is like a magistrate carefully examining all who are brought before him, punishing the guilty and allowing the innocent to go free. The kidneys keep the blood in order. If too much water or other fluid is drunk the blood might become too dilute if the kidneys did not cast out the extra water. Our object should be so to regulate the diet that there is not a great accumulation of waste products for the kidneys to remove. An important cause of kidney disease is poisoning of some sort. This you will not believe, so it is not much good my telling you. I find that firmly fixed in your mind is the idea that every organ in the body is completely separated from every other organ, and that each one must be considered by itself. Must I always be reminding you of the circulation of the blood? The blood is the medium that connects the whole body together. The drop of blood flowing through the kidney at one moment was in the gums a second or two before, and then in the walls of the bowels, and then in the brain. Poison in the Blood. Kidney disease often shows itself first by weak sight, and when you come to consult me about your eyes I ask to examine the water. That makes you angry, and you exclaim against the stupidity of doctors who adopt some out-of-the-way method of examination when all you want is a pair of glasses. No, some poison at a remote part of the body may be carried round in the blood and attack the kidneys. Foul breath is due to septic gums; the blood flows all round the dirty teeth and their still more dirty sockets, and, having been thoroughly bathed in the discharge, takes it off to the kidney. The kidney exclaims,

“Hullo! this won’t do—poisons floating in my blood. Out you go!" And the poison is taken out of the blood into the kidney substance, and, being of harmful action, it has a bad effect on the kidney. The effect produced in one hour may be almost negligible, but the effect in five is of great importance. The Danger of Chills ' Then chills must not be overlooked. A tired man, over-fatigued with 'a hard day’s work, wanting his dinner,

gets wet through; he then mounts on the top of a. tram and sits in a draught when he has been hurrying and is rather hot. A chill is the result, and the kidneys are very likely to suffer. It is a common mistake that a pain in the back is a kidney-ache. Kidney disease is very rarely shown by a pain in the back; that pain is in the muscles, and not in the kidneys at all. So if you want to avoid Bright’s Disease you must avoid alcohol in excess, avoid eating too much; keep your I bowels regular, clean your teeth, and avoid chills. Movable Kidney. The kidneys are situated right at the back of the abdomen, and the ligaments that keep them in place occasionally grow lax and allow the kidney to fall out of its place. This is called movable, or floating, kidney. It is a strange circumstance that this defect is generally associated with mental symptoms. The subject, who in nine cases out of ten is a woman, and one who has borne children, will burst into tears without any cause; she will be easily upset by trifles, and will be unreasonably bad-tempered and fidgety A small amount of movability is not of much consequence, but the results in advanced cases are rather serious. Pain in the kidney may be absent for a. long time, and then come on in a paroxysm of acute distress. A large quantity of water may be passed as though it had been stored up in the sytsem and suddenly released. Methods of Relief. There are two methods of relieving this condition, one by wearing a belt, and another by operating. I am not a great believer in belts. The kidney is so far back that it takes too great pressure to keep it in place, and pressure to so great an extent may interfere with other organs, notably the bowels. Nevertheless, a belt may be tried for a month or so to test the reresult. It should be made by a skilled instrument-maker, as it is a difficult task to fit a kidney belt perfectly. If at the end of a period of trial the symptoms are no better, then the subject of an operation may be discussed. It is a safe operation to stitch the kidney into its place; it means lying in bed for about a month, until the wound is healed up and the kidney has had a chance to settle down into its new bed and get fixed there. It is a mental relief to the patient to know that the organ is fixed, and this knowledge often has a beneficial effect. The right kidney is by far the commoner kidney to get out of place, the left very rarely does; so there need not be any anxiety about the other kidney when the right one has taken it into its head to move its quarters. If

the water has an altered appearance a specimen should be taken to the doctor for examination. The Doctor’s Bill. If a man makes it a rule to pay his doctor when the bill is sent in we are very grateful to him. A doctor has his rent and household expenses to pay just like everybody else, and he appreciates the sight of a ten-pound note

as much as anybody. We try not to be grasping, and J think, on the whole, we make a good many bad debts. We occasionally suffer because patients send for a doctor in a panic on some cold winter’s night, and when the bill comes in the spring all the anxiety has been long since forgotten, and the annoyance at the bill is all that rei mains. Let us be good friends over 1 money matters. If you agree that the

bill is just, pay as soon as you can; don’t always leave the doctor to the last. If you think the bill is too much, call and have a chat; the doctor will not bite your head off. And if you wish to find fault with a doctor, speak at once while he is attending, and no doubt the misunderstanding will be cleared up. Do not make the first complaint long after the illness is over I when the bill comes in.