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Show Released by Western Newspaper Union. GOITER Perhaps you or one of your family has been found to have the severe type of goiter or Grave's disease, in which there is rapid heart beat, trembling of limbs, failure of eyelids to ' ' move together with : the eyeball, lack of yv appetite, and sleep- LCnill lessness. Your phy-f phy-f J ' sician may advise r , W J operation whereas ,A in a case of the same , f t: type of goiter in an-V""'-1 other patient you t -.j know that he has ad- 6- iffi-aJ vised X-ray treat- Dr. Barton ment and rest and medical treatment. Why should there be three methods meth-ods of treatment for the same ailment? ail-ment? One reason is that for the average individual surgery is considered best because the patient can withstand the operation and can be back at his work sometimes within three weeks after operation. I have spoken spo-ken of a physician friend who before operation had a pulse rate of 110 to the minute, who walked into my office three weeks after operation and I found his pulse rate 72. Why, then, should treatment by X-ray be given which may take months to get the results obtained by surgery? There are two reasons. First, some patients naturally object to surgical operations, and second, some patients would not likely withstand with-stand operation well. Treatment by rest and medicine is used in early or mild cases only. It is not many years ago that patients pa-tients with Grave's disease traveled hundreds of miles to have a noted surgeon operate for removal of thyroid thy-roid gland-goiter. Today practically every hospital has- one or several surgeons who perform this operation. opera-tion. Thus the Lahey Clinic, Boston, in Annals of Surgery, reports 19,700 thyroid operations with a death rate less than one in every 100 operations. op-erations. When we remember that the great majority of these cases are of the severe type of goiter and many may enter hospital in late stages of this disease, it can be seen how "safe" this operation has become. Dr. Lahey does not advise operation opera-tion on cases that can be treated by rest and medicine even though operation op-eration would bring about a cure in much less time. He points out that as there is no fear of death in the patient's present condition, awaiting the result of rest and medical treatment treat-ment involves no danger. Treatment of Stomach Ulcers Ulcer of the stomach (gastric ulcer) ul-cer) is due to the same causes as duodenal ulcer which is ulcer of the first part of small intestine into which stomach empties the food after aft-er the stomach has done its part of digestion. In fact, a duodenanl ulcer ul-cer can be located just a fraction of an inch from the stomach. Both the stomach ulcer and the intestinal ulcer are called peptic ulcer and are treated in about the same manner by diet, medicine and surgery. It so happens, however, that while stomach ulcer is not so common as duodenal or intestinal ulcer, unfortunately un-fortunately stomach ulcer turns into cancer more often; about 10 to 20 per cent of stomach ulcers develop into cancers. In the Post Medical Journal Dr. Rodney Maingot, London, England, states that as far as symptoms are concerned the stomach ulcer cannot be distinguished from an early stomach stom-ach cancer, therefore, the chances taken with a patient with ulcer of duodenum cannot be taken with a patient with a stomach ulcer. For this reason he suggests that patients with chronic stomach ulcer should enter hospital instead of undergoing home treatment. If by special diet and medical treatment in hospital the ulcer does not heal they should undergo surgical treatment, because early operation saves lives. The medical treatment of stomach ulcer in hospital is bed rest, test meal examinations, tests for "hidden" "hid-den" blood in stools, complete examination ex-amination of the blood, examination of stomach by gastroscope which by means of a mirror enables the physician phy-sician to see the lining of the stomach, stom-ach, the barium X-ray examination. In addition to removing any infection infec-tion (teeth, tonsils, gall bladder) present, the size, shape and position of the stomach are drawn on a special spe-cial chart. QUESTION BOX Q. Is drilling of the teeth necessarily neces-sarily painful? A. Drilling is not painful In most cases. In cases where it is necessary neces-sary dentists can anaesthetize the jaw and do pain is felt. Tour dentist den-tist will explain this to you. Q. Are pork and oysters healthful health-ful food? A. Pork Is a good food, rich In fat. Too much can upset liver and gall bladder. Oysters are a good food, also rich In fat. |