The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-06-08

nervousness and worry, taking
something at night 10 make him
sleep and something before meals
TO help his digestion and taking
time off to go TO the gymnasium or
to masseur when if he would just
60 to bed and do nothing for two
weeks his frayed nerves would be-
gin TO calm down and feel normal.
A week or so ago l quoted the re-
mark made TO me once-"l verify
believe that if everyone spent all
his life in bed no one would ever
die"
Well, now comes my friend, DR..
William Dock, Of Cornell Medical
School, and gets his picture in q
magazine because he says that
Bed rest kills more patients than
anaesthesia and all the drugs in
the pharmacopoeia added to-
gether." His objections come down
to the items that, prolonged bed
rest robs the bones of chalk and
creates a negative calcium bal
ance, that it breaks down morale
by the use Of bedpans and the feel
ing of helplessness, and impedes
blood flow and thus leads TO the
formation of blood clots which
wander over the body and light in
the lungs and brain and other
places and thus cause those more
deaths tn an anaesthesia. The
anaesthetists claim (by the way,
Bill that they give 5000 success
i've anaesthetics without a death.
Doctors Other Objections
He went on TO say in his origi-
nal article in the New York State
Medical Journal, that sitting up in
a chair promoted just as much
physiologic rest as bed rest and
was free Of the hazard of the pres
sure on the backs of the legs which,
according TO statistics, leads TO the
formation of blood clots as men,
toned above.
DR.. Dock also intimated that
man was not intended by Nature
TO lie on his back. Unlike all
other mammals man sleeps on his
a-A. Ny 4eaeuon 70 that is tina
] am not sure about Nature not
intending man TO be recumbent,
but she certainly didn't intend him
to assume the erect position. Some
of the penalties human beings pay
for standing upright on their feet
are: fat feet, varicose veins, Wis
ceroptosis dropped stomach and
intestine), shoulder bursitis and
backache with or without sciatica.
Now, Bill Dock is smart gink
and why shouldn't he be, he had .
smart father who was my pro-
fessor Of medicine at the Univer-
sity Of Michigan. So we must give
some consideration TO these objec-
ions Of his.
The danger Of bed rest increases
with age. For children and those
with tuberculosis of the lungs who
are mostly young, it is all right,
according to DR.. Dock, but old
sters should not stay in bed zone
hour longer than necessary"
Definition of Rest
once wrote a treatise on medi-
cal treatment and my first chap
ter was on Rest. The first sentence
of my definition Of rest was
"Rest means a comfortable bed,
we'll made and well tended" There
is part Of the answer. Bed rest
doesn't mean the patient is to lie
on his back like a corpse. He
should have a back rest and sup
port under his knees and foot
rest so he can brace himself.
l agree that a chair is just as
good in most instances as a bed.
Nowadays, l believe, it is the ideal
of surgeons TO get their patients
out Of bed in a chair on the fourth
post-operative day. That is quite
a change from the old ideas.
certainly agree about the bed
pan breaking down morale. II
theYa ia a safe chance for the ma