[ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.]
MEDICAL.
Nellie.—The two questions you ask us are in themselves of little importance, but the condition of your mind which lies behind them compels a little advice. Your first question, “What is a good way of getting out of being afraid that there is some illness or disease the matter with oneself?” is easily answered. There is no disease without definite symptoms. You will never get a disease which will leave you very long in doubt about your health. If you want to make perfectly certain, get yourself examined by a physician and have done with your ideas. Your second question is due to the same thing as the first—a morbid self-consciousness. Anybody can think herself into any trouble. You start by fearing that you may get—let us say phthisis. In a few months you begin to think that you may have phthisis. A little time afterwards you come to the conclusion that you are going to get phthisis, the next stage is a conviction that you have phthisis, and the last stage is a feeling of certainty that you have the disease, a certainty which is unshaken by the assurance that your chest is normal, and that the supposed phthisis does not interfere with your health. The first two stages of this history are states of morbid self-consciousness, the next two are on the verge of sanity, the last is a definite disease—not phthisis, but melancholia! You must get yourself to think about other things than your own imaginary evils; a little mental struggle, and it will all come easily. Read the article we published on blushing and nervousness.
Vanity.—Weak ankles are very commonly due to wearing high-heeled shoes. Boots which button up the legs are not so liable as shoes to weaken the ankles, because they protect the latter, but with high-heeled shoes the ankle is left bare, and consequently every time that you twist your foot, you wrench the ankle-joint. We have seen serious disease of the ankle following repeated wrenching or spraining from wearing high-heeled shoes. The higher and narrower the heels are, the more liable are they to do harm.
Hereward the Wake.—Yes! tobacco-chewing is exceedingly injurious. Tobacco contains a large quantity of nicotine, a highly poisonous substance. When tobacco is chewed, this nicotine is taken into the stomach and absorbed.
Blackwater.—We have never heard of a disease or symptom called “blackwater.” We expect that what you mean is “waterbrash”; at all events your description will fit this symptom. Waterbrash is a fairly common symptom of indigestion, especially of those varieties due to excesses of starchy food, and those connected with nervous complaints. Read the answer to “Muriel” ([Jan. 21, 1899]).
Peggy.—The combination of obesity with thin brittle nails is very common. It seems that the condition of the nails may be directly due to corpulency. The only treatment we can suggest is to relieve the obesity. Conceivably massage of the fingers might be of service.
Dorothy Dimples.—We have answered this question before. We do not think that anæmia is on the increase. Anæmia of girls, that is, chlorosis or green sickness, is from the beginning a chronic disease. The question whether chlorosis is likely to lead to consumption is very important. It certainly is not likely to do so, and our experience leads us to think that anæmic subjects are not appreciably more liable to phthisis than are healthy persons. Theoretically, we should have expected otherwise. Of course some form of anæmia is invariable in the later stages of consumption, as it is in every other wasting disease.
Erda.—Pneumonia is not an hereditary disease, and the children of a woman who has had pneumonia, are no more liable to get that disease than are ordinary persons. Pneumonia is an infectious disease, and is very liable to recur.