About Health & Medicine

How to take a temperature

Shake the thermometer — make sure the mercury line is below 37°C. Armpit temperatures Place the thermometer in the armpit and close the arm, holding the elbow against the body. Wait for about 3-4 minutes before taking a reading. Oral temperatures In older children, place the thermometer well under one side of the tongue. Have the child hold it in place with his lips, not his teeth, and tell him to breathe through his nose. Make sure that he has not had a hot or cold drink within the last 5 minutes. Wait for about 3-4 minutes before taking a reading. Rectal temperatures We do not recommend this, unless it is performed by your nurse or doctor.

Cause

Fever is not an illness in itself but is the sign of an illness. There are many causes of fever in childhood. Most fevers, and the illnesses that cause them, are of relatively short duration. A fever may occasionally last much longer, and may be the sign of an underlying chronic or long-term illness or disease.

Infections are by far the commonest cause of fever in children. Most of these are caused by viruses, which are responsible for colds, upper respiratory infections, some ear infections, and the common infectious diseases of childhood such as chicken pox. These infections are self-limited (that is, they resolve after a period of time) and usually no specific treatment is necessary.

Some infections are caused by bacteria, and do need treatment with antibiotics. These include certain ear and throat infections, urine infections, pneumonia, and blood infections.

Other causes of fever are relatively uncommon, and include allergic reactions to drugs, chronic joint inflammation, some tumours, and gastrointestinal diseases.

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This test is used to diagnose urinary tract infections. The specimen must be fresh and sent without delay to the laboratory. If urine is left at room temperature for more than an hour, there can be difficulty in interpreting the final results of the test because of multiplication of germs in the sample.

Procedure

Wipe your child’s genital area with warm water, paying special attention in girls to wash the area between the labia. In girls hold the labia apart and ask the child to pass urine. Let the first few drops fall into the toilet or potty and then collect the rest in a sterile specimen jar provided by your doctor or nurse. The procedure is somewhat easier in boys, but make sure that the child does not touch the tip of his penis after you have wiped the area clean before collecting the specimen.

The specimen is sent to the laboratory and a sample is checked under the microscope immediately. A few drops of urine are also placed on a special culture medium, and incubated for 72 hours. After 24 hours any germs present will reproduce and be detected. This can help to identify the cause of your child’s urinary tract infection. The laboratory technician will also be able to check which antibiotics the germ is sensitive to and this will guide the choice of antibiotic the doctor uses to treat the infection.

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When I left my department-manager job and took over the whole store, everything changed. I felt different. Happy and sad at the same time. I was proud and excited, but sad that there was no going back. I would never be quite like I was before. I know that adjustment affected our sex. I was sort of afraid to have sex for some reason after the promotion. I don’t know if it was superstition or not, but it was like I was insecure, didn’t want to rock the boat, jinx myself. I got so busy trying to prove to everybody that I deserved the promotion that I never thought about deserving my wife or what she deserved.

HUSBAND

As I indicated earlier, mid-life crises are life crises that are finally getting our attention. There are as many books on transitions in life as there are transitions. Attention to sexual intimacy at times of change, no matter what “stage” we feel we are leaving or entering, preserves and enhances our intimate relationship and helps us through any transition.

I have listed some of the most recent sources of research on transitional life changes and adult development in the notes for this chapter. One of the most carefully researched approaches to adult development is by Dr. Gerald Levinson. He mixes sound research with interesting insights about the fact that development is not just something children do.

I noticed that at every major professional meeting on sexuality, professionals talk about overall life development more than about genitals. They do so because sex and development are one and the same. I have designed my own informal “adult sexual development cycle” that was used by the couples to discuss their own feelings about their sexual “place” at various times in their own lives. These are not steps or stages. Each phase is more like an overlapping spiral within which we move back and forth. Adults, like children, never “enter” a stage. They encounter life challenges and cope using their available resources at that time. So, as you look at each adult sexual cycle derived from my interviews, view them as reciprocal and interwoven, as stimuli for more learning, not places or stages.

SEXUAL PASSAGES: CYCLES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTIMACY

Early Childhood

Integration of physical and emotional sexual sensations, combining touch with feelings

School Age

Overcoming sanctions against sexual self-worth and enhancing sexual self-esteem

Preadolescence

Developing sensitivity to*and for other gender and accepting sensitivity to same gender

Adolescence

Integrating love needs with sex needs

Young Adulthood

Expressing vulnerability and transcending needs to withhold

Adulthood

Learning value of stability and coping with pressures for variety

Mature Adulthood

Enjoying inclusivity, sharing in balance with autonomy and individuality

Aging Adulthood

Remaining creative in balance with accepting and tolerace

The sexual histories and the multiple therapy visits of the couples, as well as the thousands of other interviews of persons coming for sexual help, revealed a pattern of recurring sexual cycles that related to the development of each spouse’s love map. Here are the eight cycles briefly outlined. The future of therapy for sexual problems rests in this family and developmental approach more than the discovery of new techniques, postures, and genital reflex controls.

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Although occasionally cysts rupture, they usually signal their presence by causing pressure on some organ or a lump in the abdomen becomes noticeable.

Diagnosis may not be easy. X-rays or scans of the liver using radioactive marker chemicals are not specific; what they confirm is the presence of a lump.

Several other tests using injections of serum into the skin have been in use for many years but they are not always accurate.

Some researchers have come up with a novel treatment in experimental animals, where the inner fluid of the cyst is removed and replaced with serum from an infected animal. Presumably the antibodies contained in the serum destroy the parasite. This has not been transferred to the treatment of humans.

Recently the use of drugs previously used to kill worms in animals has been successfully tried in man. Mebendazole and its derivatives have a low level of toxicity and show promising results.

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Cats are clean animals — but they can be a danger to pregnant women.

They pose the risk of the condition called toxoplasmosis.

In most cases, this is a mild human infection but, if a woman gets it for the first time during pregnancy, severe damage can occur to the foetus.

Toxoplasma gondii is a minute one-celled animal which appears to be a natural parasite of the cat, but for which other animals, some birds and even reptiles may act as intermediate hosts.

Oocysts or eggs may be passed with the faeces and be a source of infection.

Contact with the cat’s litter-tray or gardening without gloves in soil where the faeces may be buried can infect humans.

Eating improperly cooked meat, which may contain the oocysts, is another source of infection, if not the main one. Blood tests show that most of us eventually come into contact with the parasite, which appears to be widespread in most countries, although infections are often mild and undiagnosed.

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Vitamin C is another vitamin which is seriously involved in heart disease.

The foremost authority on vitamin C in the world, Dr. W. J. McCormick, has shown that the deficiency of vitamin C is one of the causes of coronary thrombosis. Vitamin C deficiency causes ruptures in the blood vessel walls with resultant bleeding which leads to the development of the clot and consequent heart attack. Clinical studies of the vitamin C level in coronary patients showed that 81 percent of them had a subnormal level of vitamin C in their blood.

Russian scientists have found that vitamin C has the ability to drastically lower the amount of cholesterol in the blood. A sharp decline of the cholesterol level—up to 50 percent—was noticed within a 24-hour period after administering ascorbic acid, or vitamin C.

This evidence may suffice to impress upon you that your diet should contain plenty of vitamin C. It strengthens the walls of blood vessels and capillaries, as well as all the connective tissues of the body. It reduces the cholesterol level in the blood and in the walls of the arteries and prevents the development of atherosclerosis and heart attacks. In addition, vitamin C is the most universal of all vitamins in its prophylactic and therapeutic benefits. It is good for your gums, eyes, and skin. It protects against colds and infections, and is an effective anti-toxin. It will protect your body from the harmful effects of many poisons in food and environment and has a protective, buffering action in all conditions of stress. The average American diet is deficient in vitamin C, as has been shown in many studies and tests.

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At the recent seminar on heart disease in Phoenix, Arizona, the famous heart specialist Dr. Paul Dudley White said that the key to heart disease is in the kitchen. Much heart disease begins in childhood and starts with overeating. He blamed mothers for raising a generation of prospective heart cases, and shortening the lives of their children and their husbands, by feeding them too much of the wrong foods. He particularly condemned the starchy foods of the refined carbohydrate category, such as white sugar and white flour, and too much meat, milk and milk products, as the chief fat producers and direct causes of heart troubles.

In order to understand how faulty nutrition can cause heart disease we must understand that health is a harmonious functioning of all the organs of the body, including the arteries and the heart, and is a result of living in a healthy natural environment and eating natural foods. When man’s environment and his foods are adulterated—as is the case now with processed, devitalized and poisoned foods, and polluted air and water—then an impairment in the general metabolism of the body results. Nutritional deficiencies, incomplete digestion and assimilation, glandular disturbances, malfunctions of the nervous system, autointoxication, biochemical imbalance in the tissues and blood—all these and many other physiological and degenerative changes are the result of man’s adulterated environment and faulty nutrition. Diseases of the heart and blood vessels do not develop suddenly, but rather are the end result of long-time neglect of normal body maintenance.

Faulty nutrition with too much of refined carbohydrates, white sugar and white flour, animal fats, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol, accompanied by lack of exercise, leads to obesity, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, digestive disturbances, constipation and many other conditions. Often these may be in so-called sub-clinical stages of which the individual may not be particularly aware. When these pathological changes occur, the body in self defense will attempt to cope with the adverse conditions and try to sustain life by adapting to the new situation. When blood vessels become clogged with cholesterol deposits, the heart increases blood pressure to assure an adequate blood supply through the narrowed blood vessels. When the digestive and eliminative organs and glands become affected and prematurely wear out or break down, the heart muscle will enlarge to cope with the increased amount of work and protect the whole organism from collapse. When the circulation has been so decreased due to the plugged coronary arteries that too little oxygen reaches the heart, pain occurs. This is known as angina. Thus, although we have many different forms of heart disease, they are not isolated phenomena but are related to the general health of the body. Heart disease is the result of long-time abuse in the form of poor living habits and faulty nutrition.

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The following food supplements, in addition to the ones mentioned above, are used and recommended by most biologically oriented practitioners:

Brewer’s yeast (or food yeast) —about 3 tbsp. a day.

Note: never use yeast intended for baking!

Cod liver oil, plain, not fortified—1 tsp. a day.

Raw wheat germ—2 to 3 tbsp. a day.

Wheat germ oil—2 tsp. a day.

Lecithin (granules or liquid) —1 tbsp. a day.

Whey, tablets or powder (for better intestinal hygiene).

In addition, such natural foods as honey, soybeans, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, raw nuts, yogurt, black molasses, and cold-pressed vegetable oils should be used to make a well balanced and nutritious diet.

Parenthetically, for the best effect and the fullest biological value, all vitamins and minerals and other food supplements should always be taken with meals. Because many vitamins are water soluble, and when taken in large doses may be readily lost in urine, it is advisable that the daily dose should be evenly divided between three meals, rather than taken all at one time.

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In Finland, the steam bath, or sauna, is an historic tradition. For over a thousand years the sauna has been an important part of Finnish life and Finnish culture, cherished by every Finnish man.

woman and child. The sauna is credited for much of the rugged vitality and endurance—the sisu—of the Finnish people.

In a country of less than 5 million people, there are an estimated 700,000 steam bath facilities—one sauna for every 7 people! Most Finnish saunas are in separate buildings specially constructed for this purpose. Every farm has its own sauna, usually built on the shore of a lake or river. Most family houses in the city have saunas built on the lot, usually in the back yard.

Finnish sauna bathing starts with loyly, which is the Finnish word for steam Water is thrown over hot stones, hot steam fills the room and raises the temperature. The bather can sit on a low or high bench, depending on the temperature he prefers. The usual temperature for a Finnish sauna is about 212° F, sometimes even higher. For the uninitiated I would not advise temperatures higher than 180-190° F.

In order to further increase the effect of heat and stimulate sweating, the Finns use birch brooms, vihta. Fresh birch branches with leaves are tied together to form a short broom. They are used fresh in summer or dried in winter. The dried broom is dipped in warm water and regains the same shape as the fresh one. Bathers hit themselves all over with these birch brooms. It may seem odd and eccentric to the uninitiated, but you have to try it for yourself to appreciate the fantastic delight and unbelievable pleasure the sauna with a birch broom can give.

After hot loyly, bathers usually jump into the nearby lake or river, or in winter they run out and roll in soft snow. What an exhilarating and delightful experience! Then they return to the sauna and warm up again, either by sitting up on the benches or taking more loyly with the brooms. Following this they wash themselves with warm water and soap and finish by throwing a bucket of cold water over themselves. In modern saunas, of course, there are showers and even swimming pools.

Finally, the bathers take a long relaxing rest on the benches in the dressing room and allow the wide-open pores to close, perspiration to cease, and the body to return slowly to normal temperature.

Therapeutic properties of sauna

In addition to the prophylactic and therapeutic benefits of an artificially raised fever, which a prolonged steam bath always accomplishes, the sauna bath is specifically conducive to profuse therapeutic sweating. Many toxins, accumulated in the system as a result of metabolic wastes and sluggish elimination, are thrown out of the body with perspiration. The skin is our largest eliminative organ, “the third kidney.” The skin should eliminate 30 percent of the body wastes by way of perspiration. Hundreds of thousands of tiny sweat glands act not only as the regulators of body temperature, but also as small kidneys, detoxifying organs, ready to cleanse the blood and free the system from health-threatening poisons. When the kidneys, cannot eliminate the normal quantities of urine due to overwork or a weakened condition, the body tries to eliminate such wastes by way of the skin. Uric acid, a normal compound of urine, is found in large amounts in the perspiration. The chemical analysis of sweat shows that it has almost the same constituents as urine.

The American conception of the sauna seems to be that it is helpful in reducing weight by eliminating several pounds of water through sweating. But the benefits of the sauna are far beyond mere reducing. You not only lose water by sweating in the sauna, but sweating also cleans your body of toxins, wastes and impurities.

Thus, the prophylactic value of a steam bath for normally healthy people wishing to stay healthy and prevent illness, is easy to realize. However, the therapeutic value of sauna is just as great as the prophylactic.

The therapeutic property of sauna is attributed to the following facts:

Overheating with loyly stimulates and speeds up the metabolic processes and inhibits the growth of virus or bacteria.

The vital organs and glands are stimulated to increased activity.

The body’s healing and restorative capacity is accelerated.

The eliminative, detoxifying and cleansing capacity of the skin is dramatically increased by the stimulating action of the sweat glands.

The body is thoroughly cleansed and rejuvenated inside and out.

Many authorities attribute the phenomenal therapeutic properties of sauna to the Finnish custom of jumping into cold water or snow during bathing. The sudden changes in temperature are known to stimulate adrenal glands; the effect of the alternate hot and cold bath is likened to a cortisone injection.

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American readers need no introduction to juices. The United States can take credit for the popularization of juice both as a food and as a drink. Juices of countless kinds and descriptions form a major part of the food processing industry. Just walk to any supermarket and you will see whole departments of long shelves full of various brands of juices and drinks. You’ll find juices in gallon jars, in tin cans, in glass bottles, and in waxed cartons. You may have your juice fresh, frozen, canned, concentrated, mixed, reconstituted, synthetic, sugar-added, natural, colored—have your pick! You can buy it at your favorite food store, get it from the automatic dispenser, buy it at the corner drug store or garage, or have it delivered to your doorstep each morning by your milkman. Almost all Americans drink juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We are, without question, the biggest juice drinkers in the world!

Although the popularity of juice is based on the premise that it is good for your health—and for this reason many a mother forces orange juice down the

throats of her kids each morning—it does not seem to have been doing any good for the health of the American people. It seems that we are much sicker now than a generation or two back, prior to the juice drinking fad. milkman. Almost all Americans drink juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We are, without question, the biggest juice drinkers in the world!

Although the popularity of juice is based on the premise that it is good for your health—and for this reason many a mother forces orange juice down the The explanation of this paradox is simple. The kind of juices most Americans drink not only lack health-giving properties, but may, in addition, be hazardous to health. Because of extensive processing, heating, chemical treatments, synthetic artificial colorings and flavorings, sugar or artificial sweeteners, and additions of many toxic preservatives, the juices or the so-called juice drinks you buy at your supermarket today bear no resemblance to the juices which were originally meant to be health-giving beverages—fresh, Taw, natural juices. Just read the labels on the cans and you’ll see what I mean!

So let’s make this thing clear once and for all: the only juices which can be considered as health-giving, or conducive to good health and well-being, and can be recommended for the therapeutic use in the healing of disease or as a preventive measure in maintaining good health, are fresh, raw, natural juices, prepared immediately before drinking from fresh fruits, berries, vegetables, and green plants. Such juices you won’t find at the usual kind of supermarket.

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