Andrew Barton Paterson - "An Outback Marriage"

Effie Afton - "Eventide"

Edward Elmer Smith - "Triplanetary"

Anonymous - "The Little Mother Goose"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

A Handbook of Health

W >> Woods Hutchinson >> A Handbook of Health




It is also best not to push back the fold of skin at the base of the
nails, with instruments of any sort; or indeed, with anything harder
than the ball of the thumb or finger. This fold protects the delicate
growing part, or root, of the nail; and if it is shoved back too
vigorously, the root may become exposed, or even inflamed and infected,
and cause one of those extremely irritating little sores known as a
"hangnail."


DISEASES AND DISTURBANCES OF THE SKIN

Their Chief Causes. Skin troubles are of two main kinds according to
their cause: _internal_, due to the irritation of waste-poisons, or
toxins, in the blood; and _external_, from direct injury or irritation
of the skin from without.

The latter are often due to the wearing of too tight or too heavy
clothing, or the failure properly to wash, cleanse, and ventilate the
skin. Some of the lesser disturbances come from the chafing of collars,
wristlets, and belts, and are, of course, relieved by loosening the
clothing or substituting soft, comfortable cotton for rasping flannels.
Others come from the use of too strong soaps, or the too frequent use of
hot water, or too vigorous scrubbing of the skin, and these can be
relieved by the avoidance of their cause.

Sunburn and Freckles and how to Cure Them. Upon the hands and face,
sunburn and freckles may occur from exposure to the weather. They are
not caused necessarily by exposure to direct sunlight; as the bright
light and the cold air out of doors, also, will produce this irritating
effect upon the skin.

The best way to cure sunburn is to bathe in cool water, take a night's
rest, then go out the next day, and the day after, and take another dose
of exposure, keeping this up until your face is hardened to stand a
reasonable amount of sun. If you are in proper condition, neither your
face nor your hands will sunburn uncomfortably. If they do, except under
extreme exposure, it is a sign that you have not been living out of
doors enough.

The various face-washes and creams and dusting powders which are used
for the relief of sunburn, while they may, if mild enough, make the face
feel somewhat more comfortable for a little time, owe most of their
virtues to the fact that they are generally used at bedtime and then get
the credit for the cure which nature works while you are asleep. If you
should buy them, and keep them on your dressing-table unopened, where
you could see them before you went to bed, you would in nine cases out
of ten be just as much better in the morning as if you had used them.

The only harm done by freckles is to your vanity. They and sunburn both,
in fact, are protective actions on nature's part, filling the skin with
coloring matter, or _pigment_, so as to protect it, and the tissues
below, from the irritating effects of the strong rays of light.

A like deposit of pigment, in greater amounts, in the skins of races who
live in or near the tropics, gives rise to the characteristic coloring
of the black, brown, and yellow races. The pigment, or coloring matter,
is of exactly the same kind in all, from the negro to the white. The
brown race having a little less of it than the negro, the yellow race a
little less yet, and the white least of all, though there is some of it
in even the whitest of skins.

Real Skin Diseases. Most of the serious and lasting diseases of the
skin are caused by the attack of germs. Perfect cleanliness and
ventilation are the best protection against them all; but if you should
be unfortunate enough to catch one of these diseases, your doctor will
be able to give you the mild germicide or antiseptic that will kill the
particular germ that may have lodged upon your skin.

The commonest form of inflammation of the skin is called _eczema_, and
eight-tenths of all eczemas are due to some mild germ, and can be cured
by the appropriate poison for it.

Other diseases, particularly of the scalp, such as _ringworm_ and
_dandruff_, are due to other forms of vegetable germs, and may be cured
by their proper poisons; while others, such as the so-called "prairie
itch" (_scabies_), and lice in the hair, are due to the presence of tiny
animal _parasites_.

The Hookworm. Another disease which enters through the skin is the now
famous _hookworm_, or blood-sucking parasite, which has been found to be
so common in tropical regions and in our Southern States. This parasite
has the curious habit of attaching itself by hooks surrounding its
mouth (which gave it its name), to the lining of the human intestine,
particularly its upper third. There it swings, and lives by sucking the
blood of its victim. When the worm has once attached itself in the
intestine, it may live for from five to fifteen years. All this time it
is constantly laying eggs; and these eggs, which are so tiny that they
have to be put under a microscope to be seen, pass out in the feces; and
if they are not deposited in a proper water closet, or deep vault, but
scattered about upon the surface of the soil, the eggs quickly hatch
into tiny, little wriggling worms called _larvae_, which are still
scarcely large enough to be seen with the naked eye.

These larvae live in the soil; and, when it is wet and muddy, they get up
between the toes of boys and girls who are going barefoot, burrow their
way in through the skin, and produce a severe itching inflammation of
the skin of the feet, known as "ground-itch," "toe-itch" or "dew-itch."
When they have worked their way through the skin, they bore on into a
blood vessel, are carried to the heart, pumped by the heart into the
lungs, and there again work their way out of the blood vessels into the
bronchial, or air tubes, crawl up these through the windpipe and voice
organ into the throat, are swallowed into the stomach, and from there
pass on into the upper intestine to attach themselves for their
blood-sucking life. If they are sufficiently numerous, their victim
becomes thin, weak, and bloodless, with pale, puffy skin, and shortness
of breath; he is easily tired on the least exertion, and ready to fall a
victim to any disease, like tuberculosis, pneumonia, or typhoid, that
may happen to attack him.

Their spread can be absolutely prevented either by the strict use of
toilets or deep vaults, thus preventing the deposit of feces anywhere
upon the surface of the ground; or by the constant wearing of shoes or
sandals, thus preventing the larvae from attacking the feet and working
their way through the skin and body into the intestine.

Fortunately, the disease is as curable as it is common, and two doses of
a proper germicide, with a day in bed, and a laxative, will promptly
cure it except in the worst cases.

The Rashes of Measles, Scarlet Fever, etc. Many of the infectious
fevers, such as measles, scarlet fever, chicken-pox, and smallpox, are
attended by rashes, or _eruptions_, upon the surface of the skin, due to
a special gathering or accumulation of the particular germs causing each
disease, just under the skin. When the skin sheds, or flakes off, after
the illness, the germs are shed in the scales and float, or are carried
about, and thus spread the disease to others.

These rashes or eruptions are not dangerous in themselves, though often
very uncomfortable, but help us to recognize the disease; they probably
show us the sort of thing that is going on in the deeper parts of the
body. If you imagine that your throat and bronchial tubes and lungs are
peppered as full of the disease spots as your skin is, in measles and in
scarlet fever, you will readily understand why your throat is so sore
and why you have so much tickling and coughing.

The Health of the Scalp and Hair. The scalp, being covered by hair,
does not perspire so freely as the rest of the skin of the body; but a
considerable amount of oily waste matter is poured out on it, and the
surface of its skin scales off in exactly the same way as does the rest
of the body. If this accumulation of tiny scales and grease is not
properly brushed out, it forms an excellent seed-bed for some of the
milder kinds of germs that attack the skin; and a scurfy, itchy
condition of the scalp is set up, known as dandruff.

The best way to keep the scalp clean of these accumulations of greasy
scales is by vigorous and regular brushing with a moderately stiff, but
flexible, bristle brush. Wire brushes should not be used, as the wires
scratch and irritate the delicate scalp and do more harm than good. If
you watch a groom brushing and currying the coat of a thoroughbred
horse, you will get a fair idea of hew you ought to treat your own scalp
at least twice a day, night and morning.

If this currying of the hair be thoroughly done, and the head washed
with soap and hot water about once a week for short hair and twice a
month for long hair, most of the dangers of dandruff and of other
infections of the scalp will be avoided. One thing to be remembered is,
don't brush too hard or too deep. There is an old saying and a good one,
"You can't brush the scalp too little, or the hair too much."

Wetting the hair for the purpose of "slicking" it or combing it, is
about as bad a thing as could be done; for the moisture sets up a sort
of rancid fermentation in the natural oil of the scalp, giving the
well-known sour smell to hair that is combed instead of brushed, and
furnishing a splendid soil for germs and bugs of all sorts to breed in.
There is no objection to boys' and men's wetting their hair in cold
water as often as they wish, provided that they rub it thoroughly dry
afterward and give it a brisk currying with the brush.

Hair oils and greases of all sorts are sanitary nuisances, and mere
half-civilized and lazy substitutes for proper brushing and washing.
There is no drug known to medicine which will cause hair to grow, or
make it thicker or curlier. All "hair tonics" claiming to do this are
frauds.

Corns, Calluses, and Warts. Our skin not only made our hair, teeth,
and nails, but still retains in every part a trace of its nail-making
powers, so that under pressure or irritation, it can thicken up into a
heavy leather-like substance which we call _callus_. This is naturally
and healthfully present in the soles of the feet and the palms of the
hands. Savage, or barbarous, races who wear no shoes get the skin of
their soles thickened into a regular human leather, almost half an inch
thick, and as tough as rawhide. A somewhat similar condition develops in
the palms of the hands of those who work hard with spades, axes, or
other tools.

Any good process carried to excess becomes bad, and this is true of this
power of callus formation in the skin; for parts of it which are under
constant pressure, like the surface of the toes inside the shoe, and
particularly of the outside toes, the little and the big toe, develop
under that pressure patches of thickened, horny skin, which we call
_corns_. These patches start to grow into cone-shaped projections or
buttons; but being prevented from growing outward by the pressure of the
shoe, they turn upon themselves and burrow into the skin itself, and we
get the well-known ingrowing corn.

If there is anything in the human body which we ought to be thoroughly
ashamed of, it is corns; for they are caused by our own vanity, and
nothing else, in cramping our feet into shoes one or two sizes too small
for them. There are a number of things that can be done to relieve the
discomfort of the corn, but the only sure way is to remove its cause,
namely, the tight shoe.

Under other kinds of irritation, the skin has the power of growing
curious little button-like buds, or projections, which we call _warts_.
These are commonest in childhood, and generally disappear at about
twelve or fifteen years of age, when we no longer delight in dirt, and
glory in mud pies.

They can be produced upon the hands of grown men and women by irritating
fluids and substances, such as wet sugar in the case of bakers and
confectioners, and various color-stains in dye works. They seldom last
for more than a few months, and usually narrow at their base and drop
off, when the particular irritation that caused them ceases. On this
account it is seldom worth while to try to remove them by burning with
acids or cutting them off; and it is best not to pick at, or irritate,
or scratch them too much.




CHAPTER XVII

THE PLUMBING AND SEWERING OF THE BODY


The Wastes of the Body. Almost everything that the body does in the
process of living means the breaking down, or burning, of food; and
produces, like every other kind of burning, two kinds of waste--"smoke"
and "ashes."

The carbon dioxid "smoke," as we have already learned, is carried in the
blood to the lungs, where it passes off in the breath. The solid part of
our body waste, or the "ashes," is of two kinds--that which can be
melted in water, or is, as we say, _soluble_; and that which cannot be
melted in water, or is _insoluble_. The insoluble part of our solid body
waste goes into the feces and is thus disposed of.

The soluble part of the body waste goes by a somewhat more roundabout
route. With the carbon dioxid it is poured by the body cells into the
veins, carried to the heart, and pumped through the lungs, where the
carbon dioxid is thrown off. Going back to the heart it is pumped all
over the body, part of it going through a very large artery to the
liver, part through two large arteries to the kidneys, part to the skin,
and the rest all over the remainder of the body.

The blood goes completely round the body-circuit from the heart to the
fingers and toes, and back again to the heart, in less than forty-five
seconds. Practically every drop of blood in the body will be pumped
through the liver, the kidneys, and the skin, about once every half
minute, so that they get plenty of chance to purify it thoroughly when
they are working properly.

This sounds rather complicated; but is interesting, because it shows
how much of a "mind of their own" the different organs and stuffs in our
bodies have, or what, in scientific language, we call "power of
selection." The skin glands pick out of the blood those waste substances
which they are able to get rid of. The kidneys pick out another class of
waste substances, which they are best able to deal with; while the liver
which is the most important of all, attacks almost every kind of waste
brought to it by the blood, and prepares it for disposal by the
intestines, skin, and kidneys.

The Liver. The liver has a size to match its importance. It is the
largest and heaviest gland, or organ, in the body, and weighs about
three pounds, a little more than the brain. It buds off from the food
tube just below the stomach, so that its waste tube, the _bile
duct_--about the size of a goose quill--opens into the upper part of the
intestine.

The main work of the liver is to receive the blood from all over the
body and to act upon its waste substances, burning them up so that they
can be taken up, and got rid of, by the glands of the skin and the
kidneys. In the process it very frequently changes these waste
substances from poisonous into harmless forms; and even when disease
germs get into the body and infect it, the poisons, or toxins, which
they pour into the blood are carried to the liver and there usually
burned up, or turned into harmless substances.

The liver is, therefore, to be regarded as a great _poison filter_ for
the entire body. So long as it can deal with the poisons as fast as they
are formed, either by the body itself, or in the food, or by disease
germs, the body is safe and will remain healthy. But if the poisons come
faster than the liver can deal with them, as, for instance, when we have
eaten tainted meat or spoiled fruit, or have drunk alcohol, they begin
to poison our nerves and muscles, and we become, as we say, "bilious."
Our head aches, our tongue becomes coated, we have a bad taste in the
mouth, we lose our appetite and feel stupid, dull, and feverish.

Such waste materials as the liver cannot burn down so that the kidneys
and skin can handle them, it pours out through its duct into the
intestine as the bile. The bile is a yellowish-brown fluid, which
assists the pancreatic juice in the digestion of the food, and helps to
dissolve the fats eaten, but is chiefly a waste product. It turns green
when it has been acted upon by acids, or exposed to the air. So that the
bile which you throw up when you are very sick at your stomach, is green
because it has been acted upon by your gastric juice.

As you will remember, the blood which comes from the stomach and bowels
is carried by the portal vein to the liver first and, through that, to
the heart, instead of going directly to the heart, as all the other
impure blood in the body does. This is owing, in part, to the fact that
this blood, being full of substances freshly taken or made from the
food, is very likely to contain poisons; indeed, as a matter of fact,
blood taken from these veins on its way to the liver, and injected
directly into the blood vessels of an animal, acts like a mild poison.

In part, however, this blood goes first to the liver, because the liver,
besides being a great blood purifier, is a "blood-maker" in the sense
that it changes raw food-stuffs in the blood from the intestines into
forms which are more suitable for use by the brain, the muscles, and the
other tissues of the body. Some of the sugars, for instance, the liver
turns into a kind of animal starch (_glycogen_), which it stores away in
its own cells. It also turns both sugars and proteins in the portal
blood into fat, part of which it pours into the blood, and part of which
it stores away also in its own cells. Thus the liver owes its great size
partly to the large amount of blood-purifying, filtering, and
poison-destroying work which it has to do, and partly to its acting
as a storehouse of starch and fat, which the body can readily draw upon
as it needs them.

[Illustration: OUTLINE DIAGRAM SHOWING GENERAL PLAN AND POSITION OF
BODY-MACHINERY]

As all poisons formed in, or entering, the body are brought to the liver
for destruction, it is in an extremely exposed position, and very liable
to break down under the attack of these poisons, whether of infectious
diseases, or chloroform, or alcohol, or those formed by putrefaction in
the stomach and intestines. This is why those who have lived long in the
tropics and suffered from malaria, dysentery, and other infectious
diseases, and those who drink too much alcohol, or have chronic
indigestion, or dyspepsia, are likely to have swollen and inflamed
livers.

The Gall Bladder. The liver has on its under side a little pear-shaped
pouch called the _gall bladder_, in which the bile is stored before it
is poured into the bowel. If this becomes inflamed by disease germs, or
their poisons, in the blood, little hard masses will form inside it,
usually about the size of a grain of corn, known as _gall stones_. So
long as they stay in the gall bladder, they give little trouble, but if
they start to pass out through the narrow bile duct into the intestine,
they cause severe attacks of pain, known as "gall-stone colic," and, by
blocking up the duct, may dam up the flow of the bile, force it back
into the blood again, and stain all our tissues, including our skin and
our eyes, yellow; and then we say we are _jaundiced_. Jaundice may also
be caused by colds or other mild infections which attack the liver and
bile ducts and clog the proper flow of the bile.

The Kidneys. The kidneys are another form of blood-filter, which deal
chiefly with waste stuffs in the blood left from the proteins, or Meats,
of our food--meat, fish, milk, cheese, bread, peas, beans, etc. These
waste-stuffs, called _urea_ and _urates_, are formed in the liver and
brought in the blood to the kidneys. These lie on either side of the
backbone, opposite the small of the back, their lower ends being level
with the highest point of the hip-bones, nearly six inches higher than
they are usually supposed to be. When you think you have a "pain across
the kidneys," it is usually a pain in the muscles of the back much lower
down, and has nothing to do with the kidneys at all.

A very large artery carries the blood from the aorta to each side of the
kidney, and a large vein carries the purified blood back to the vena
cava and heart. Two smaller tubes about the size of a crow quill, the
waste pipes of the kidneys (the _ureters_), carry the water containing
urea and other waste substances strained out by the kidneys and called
urine, down into a large pouch, the _bladder,_ to be stored there until
it can be got rid of.

[Illustration: THE URINARY SYSTEM

_K_, kidneys; _U_, ureters; _B_, bladder; _A_, artery; _V_, vein.]

The kidneys then are big filter-glands. They, like the lungs, are made
up of a mesh, or network, of thousands of tiny tubes of two kinds, one
set of tubes being blood vessels, and the other set the tiny branches of
the kidney tubes which finally run together to form the ureters. The
urine filters through from the spongy mesh of blood tubes (capillaries)
into the kidney tubes and is poured out through the ureters. It is very
important that the urine should be discharged as fast as it fills the
bladder, that is, about once every three hours during the day. Nothing
should be allowed to interfere with this; and whenever nature tells you
that the bladder is full, it should be emptied promptly, or the poisons
which nature is trying to get rid of in the urine may get back into the
blood and cause serious trouble.

Diseases of the Kidneys. Naturally, the kidneys, working all the time
and pouring out, as they do every day, from three to four pints of the
liquid waste called urine, are subject to numerous diseases and
disturbances. One of the common causes of these is failure to keep the
skin thoroughly clean and healthy, as perspiration is of somewhat the
same character as the urine; and if it be checked, it throws an extra
amount of work upon the kidneys.

Another most important thing to keep the kidneys working well is to
drink plenty of water, at least six or eight glasses a day, as well as
to eat plenty of fresh green vegetables and fresh fruits, which, as we
have seen, are eighty per cent water. Remember, we are a walking
aquarium, and all our cells must be kept flooded with and soaked in
water in order to be healthy. If the blood becomes overloaded with
poisons, so much work may be thrown upon the kidneys that they will
become inflamed and diseased and cannot form the urine properly; and
then poisons accumulate in the system and finally produce serious
illness and even death.

It was at one time believed that eating too much of certain kinds of
foods, particularly those that leave much nitrogenous waste in the body,
such as meat and fish, could produce a diseased condition of the
kidneys, known as Bright's Disease; but we have found that the larger
part of such cases are due to the attack of the germs of infectious
diseases, particularly scarlet and typhoid fevers, tuberculosis, and
colds. The popular impression that colds from wet feet or long drives in
winter may "settle in the kidneys" is wrong, except in so far as those
colds are caused by infectious germs.

Another cause of disturbance and permanent damage to the kidneys is the
habitual use of alcohol. Even though this may be taken in only moderate
amounts, the constant soaking of the tissues with even small amounts of
alcohol may be most harmful to the kidneys, as well as to the liver.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE MUSCLES


Importance of the Muscles. It wouldn't be of much use to smell food,
if we couldn't pick it up and bite it after we had reached it; or to see
danger, if we were not able to move away from it. Every animal that
lives, moves; and every movement, whether of the entire body from one
place to another, or of parts of the body changing their relations to
one another, or altering their shape, is carried out by an elastic,
self-moving body-stuff, which we call _muscle_.

All the work that we do, whether in earning our living, or catching our
food, or chewing it, or swallowing it and driving it through our food
tube, or pumping the blood through our arteries, or drawing air into our
lungs, is done by muscles. Hence, a very large part of the body has to
be made of muscles. In fact, our muscles, put together, weigh almost as
much as all the other stuffs in the body, making over forty per cent of
our weight.

How the Muscles Act. The commonest form of muscle that we see is the
red, lean meat of beef, mutton, or pork; and this will give us a good
idea of how our own muscles look. All muscles, whatever their size or
shape, are made up of little spindle-shaped or strap-shaped cells, or
wriggling "body-cells" arranged in bands or strings. The size of a given
muscle depends upon the number of cells that it contains.

The astonishing variety of movements which muscles can make is due to
the fact that they have the power when stirred up, or stimulated, of
changing their shape. As most of the muscle substance is arranged in
bands, this change of shape on the part of the tiny cells that make up
the band means that the band grows thicker and at the same time
shorter,--just as a stretched rubber band does when it slackens,--so
that it pulls nearer together the bones or other structures to which it
is fastened at each end by fibrous cords called _tendons_, or sinews.
This shortening of the muscle band is known as _contraction_.

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