The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

14 The Health Bulletin February, 192:
as it iiioniotioii to licaltli. This writer
afrrcH'S with the author fully on this
point. We have an altuiidance of sympathy
for, but very little patience with,
the person who has decided to make a
relision out of certain so-called health
I>ractices. Such persons are pests in
their own homes and often drive the
other members of their families to
drink or despair. They are the kind
of people who eventually help buy
Packard motor cars for the quack
practitioners ; and they are one jrrand
continual joy to the patent medicine
division of the drug stores.
We may say right here that there is
a tendency on the part of many health
departments to overdo the standardization
of rules and regulations applying
to the very personal matter of diet
and other things. This is especially
tiue in the field of infant feeding, to
mention only one specialty. Simply
overdoing a good thing so-to-speak.
Many of these matters are things for
individual adjustment on the principle
that the first wise man had in mind
who said that "What is often one man's
meat is poison for anotlier." Intelligent
selection of food, avoidance of
excess in anything, and regular habits.
are the antidotes for "health notions."
The author also has a good chapter
on "Germ-phobia." He classifies it
under "Definite Dreads." This, of
course, on a parody with the person
who refuses to be left alone in a house
or to go on the street after dark, the
person who will not open an orange
until it is thoroughly scrubbed with
soap and water, and obsessed with
other extreme notions.
One of the almost startling statements
the author makes is that "we
must not forget that we know much
more about the results of high blood
pressure than we do about its causes."
And, furthermore, he says that "it is
quite generally believed in medical circles
at the present time that it is the
high pressure which serves to bring
about hardened arteries as w^ell as that
the hardened arteries are responsible
for high pressure." These are things,
of course, for a patient to talk over
with his physician. In short, the author
boldly proclaims that "the time has
come to correct this old time notion
that it is hardened arteries that raise
the pressure, and in its place to have
the public understand that in the average
case it is high pressure that
hardens the arteries."
The author advances the opinion that
it is possible a disturbance in the ductless
glands may often be the cause of
either high or low pressure phenomena.
The author has quite a bit to say about
"heart failure." This, of course, is inexcusable
in a medical writer now-adays.
When the heart stops beating,
there is some definite cause for it and
that cause should be stated instead of
the meaningless term "heart failure,"
which would be more appropriate in a
discussion of the mechanism of automobiles.
The author, we think, very properly
classifies among the influences responsible
for high blood pressure disease
toxins, diet, drugs, and mental states.
For example, the man at 50 years old
who finds himself out of a job and
knows that it is much harder to go
out and make a start at that time than
it would be at 30 naturally is apprehensive
; and this mental worry may
be easily the cause of high blood pressure
and may be the beginning of many
The author makes the
other troubles.
pertinent observation that "if the average
individual is sick enough to need a
drug, he is sick enough to have a
doctor. Doctors have been trained how
to use drugs. They are experienced in
using medicine, and when it comes to
the habitual employment of these
chemical agencies I believe it should
be done under medical direction." That
is the most clear-cut statement in
fewest words that we have ever seen
of a fundamental fact of profound importance.
That is the reason that the
medical closets for the average family
as recommended by the Health Bulletin
of the North Carolina State
Board of Health, have always consisted
of a very meagre list when it comes
to the stock of drugs advised.
One of the finest things in the book
is the author's reference to alcohol in
the role it plays in diseases of the
class which produce high blood pressure,
arterial sclerosis, and so on. He
says that "alcohol is a peculiar drug.
It is the great deceiver of materia