Papers on Health

by John Kirk

Now the first thing to do to overcome this habit is to realise that worry is a bad habit which it is quite possible to get rid of. The proof of this is that thousands of people for years slaves to it have got rid of it. Through some means or other they have been brought to exercise their will power and have found, sometimes to their considerable astonishment, always to their inexpressible relief, that they have regained a lost mental power and that their efficiency as workers has been enormously increased.

If any matter needs much thought, devote thought to it, reflect and weigh carefully. If it requires time, take it up at separate times. Only make up your mind to this one thing, that you are the master and the arbitrator as to when it shall be taken up. If it intrudes, dismiss it as you would a servant from the room when you no longer require his presence. It is bound to go when you do so dismiss it. When you summon it to your consciousness concentrate your mind upon it. Want of concentration, being a dissipation of the mental powers, is a cause of worry.

Worry becomes doubly baneful when it is directed towards the "might have been." Legitimate regret should be an emotion always accompanied by the determination to learn by experience. Every aid to enable the dispossessed will to regain its rightful throne should be employed. Properly chosen books, companions, and surroundings, are of great use, but perhaps quiet persistent self culture of the will, will be found to be the best. It matters little whether you call this "self suggestion" or not. As a matter of fact it is simply the common-sense of the question. It is the making up of the mind to do a thing with certain aspirations, emotions, and desires towards this thing. Thousands of people do it every day, especially in religious matters. It needs an adequate motive or a great ideal to carry it out. Such a motive here, might be the realisation of the uselessness and the positive harm of worry. Actually realise this, then affirm your determination to avoid worry and you have well begun the battle. Go through this mental exercise each time you feel you are worrying again. After a while you may omit it all but the mental determination.

The mind cannot act rightly in an unsound body, and there is no doubt that good health wards off worry. Deep breathing of fresh air by producing well oxygenated pure blood, will do much to restore mental balance, especially if this want of mental balance is, as is often the case, partly due to inattention to the laws of health.

Worry is by no means a necessary concomitant of high civilisation, it is rather an accompanying mental disease due partly to low nerve power, which itself is due to erroneous methods of life—errors of diet, want of pure air, cleanliness, exercise, etc. Partly, too, is this low nerve power due to mental causes peculiarly Western. The Asiatic with his power of concentration, reflection, contemplation, with his patience, endurance, calmness, knows nothing of this scourge of European and American life. Even the Japanese, progressive and efficient as they are, possess this native contented, sweet, calm disposition, a habit of mind which, if they can retain, will be of enormous value to them in coming years.

Wounds, Bleeding of.—After sending for a surgeon the first thing to be looked at in case of any wound is the bleeding. Sometimes this is trifling and needs no particular effort to staunch it. When, however, a vein or artery has been lacerated the flow must immediately be attended to.

If the blood be welling up from the wound and of a dark red colour it is venous blood, if it spurt up from the wound and be of a bright red colour it is arterial blood. What has to be done is to place a pressure on the vein or artery to prevent the blood escaping.

Venous bleeding may generally be stopped by putting a pad of lint dipped in cold water on the wound and tying it on with a bandage. If the blood continues to flow, tie a bandage round the limb on the side of the wound away from the heart and keep the limb raised.

Arterial bleeding must be treated by tying on the pad and bandage, and if the bleeding continues, stopping the flow in the artery on the side of the wound nearest the heart, and at some point where it passes over a bone so that pressure may be efficiently applied. The bandage for thus tying an artery may be simply made by knotting a handkerchief (Diagram IV.), putting something solid inside the knot, then placing the knot on the artery at the desired point and tying tightly. If required this may be tightened by putting a stick under and twisting round, then tying the stick in position (Diagram II.).