The widely-publicized milk of magnesia and sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, are two preparations which can safely be kept in the family medicine chest and which are frequently advised by physicians for alkaline purposes.

Most modern women prefer to keep their cosmetics in their own boudoirs, but the man of the house is likely to put his into the family medicine cabinet. They should include, in most instances, a razor, which should be kept in its box and not permitted to lie around loose, also some shaving soap or cream, some face lotion, which may be either witch hazel or a special lotion which he prefers.

Found in a half-dozen family medicine chests were old cloths to be used as bandages, cracked atomizer bulbs, horehound candy, shoehorns, curling irons, dried sponges, packages of seeds, hair grease, mange cure, face bleach, shoe polish, empty tooth paste and shaving cream tubes, fifty different remedies for colds, combs for permanent waves, bobby pins, the remaining partners of divorced cuff links, nail polish, bath salts, and discarded sets of teeth.

The number of antiseptics found, and their efficiency, varied tremendously. One or two antiseptics were found in some cases, and as many as six different antiseptics in others, individual members of the family having their own likes and dislikes in these matters. A household remedy should be one with a certain definite action, and usually it should contain but one active ingredient. If the thing is worth keeping in the medicine chest it should be something which is used fairly frequently.

People who are depressed have in the past been treated frequently with benzedrine, or amphetamine, which stimulates but which has the undesirable effect of raising the blood pressure.

A new drug called Meratran has little effect on the breathing, the pulse rate, or the blood pressure but does act directly on the brain to overcome depression. If the central nervous system is underactive, this drug seems to restore it to a more normal level of activity.

Obviously drugs of this type are not given to people who are overexcited. The drug has been useful in the condition called narcolepsy, in which there is a sudden irresistible desire to sleep. This condition has also been treated with amphetamine.

Among the great unsolved problems of modem medicine are many of those associated with mental disease. People still fear the sudden appearance of the “loss of the mind”, or the birth of a child apparently without normal mental ability. Over 3,000,000 children are born in this country every year. Actually from 150,000 to 200,000 of those born will eventually be committed to hospitals for mental disease.

Much can be done to prevent or overcome many of the conditions that disturb the mind. With modern methods of treatment, improvement can even be secured in certain forms of complete mental breakdown. Problems of mental defect and of mental diseases are not only approached by putting the patients in institutions but also by applying some of these new forms of treatment.

Suitable adjustment of workers to their surroundings is important in establishing a smooth-running condition in any business or industry. Ask the average business man if he needs a psychiatrist in his business, and he will think you are mentally disturbed. Psychiatrists, most people believe, spend practically all of their time finding people who need to be confined in institutions because they are wholly irresponsible.

Most large industries have employment interviewers, who have knowledge of the positions to be filled, of the persons in the department, and, therefore, of the kind of employee who will fit best and serve most satisfactorily under the circumstances. Most employment interviewers can recognize easily a prospective employee who is so far “off the beaten path” from a mental point of view as to be unsatisfactory for any job. No one suggests that employment interviewers should be replaced by psychiatrists or psychologists.

The mechanism by which these drugs have their effect is not clearly established. However, some evidence indicates that a neurohormone called Serotonin is involved. When it is insufficient in amount to produce its normal effects, abnormal behavior may be observed. In concluding his address Dr. Himwich wrote, “These new drugs are not a flash in the pan but their therapeutic values have been widely corroborated. However, they are not a complete answer to our therapeutic problem because no one drug is able to ameliorate the condition of all of the patients and none of them is as efficacious for melancholia as is electric shock.”

When Sir William Osler made his valedictory address to the University of Pennsylvania in 1889, he chose the subject “Aequanimitas.” He said, “In the physician or surgeon no quality takes rank with imperturbability.” Then he defined the word: “Imperturbability means coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances, calmness amid storm, clearness of judgment in moments of grave peril, immobility, impassiveness, or, to use an old and expressive word, phlegm.” He was doubtful that it could be acquired except by inheritance and he thought that some of his students, “owing to congenital defects,” might never be able to acquire it. He counseled, nevertheless, that education with practice and experience might help to attain imperturbability in fair measure. The doctor, Osier felt, should develop an “inscrutable face by education of his nerve centers.” In concluding this discussion of imperturbability he said:

Most people have minor emotional disturbances that are not recognized but, because of their effects on the general health, have medical significance. Many people in industry, in labor, and in public life get along, although they suffer at all times with difficulties of adjustment to their environment. An analysis of the people who come to doctors’ offices revealed that from 30 to 60 per cent come as patients primarily because of complaints due to emotional disorders, which are reflected as physical disorders. Therefore, frustrations, anxiety, and fear may appear as headaches, ulcers of the stomach, asthma, or similar conditions. Indeed, emotional factors may be present in the great majority of physical illnesses. Treatment is not fully satisfactory unless it takes care of the mental as well as the physical factors.

Emotional health is necessary for physical health. Human beings often become mentally and emotionally disturbed because of self-condemnation related to problems of sex which they do not understand. Social and cultural considerations which regulate human sex behavior are more rigid than the biological considerations. These considerations define what is moral much more definitely than do biologic and medical science.

In various portions of the United States the attitudes of people vary a great deal as to the ordinary relationships between the sexes. In some portions of the country it would be considered a gross violation of domestic relations for a married man to have lunch with a married woman other than his wife. In other branches of American society, and this refers of course particularly to our larger cities, such ordinary meetings are within the pattern of everyday social existence.

Worry is a protracted or recurrent act of the mind, which always fails to result in a constructive solution of the question and usually ends in confusion, fatigue, and emotional instability. You can concern yourself about an important problem, if this means merely a careful consideration in an orderly manner, leading eventually to an acceptable conclusion. Even when the conclusion happens to be contrary to your wishes, it may be accepted as a conclusion and thus worry can be avoided. Such an effort is constructive, whereas worry is always destructive.

The ordinary dictionaries describe worry as feeling or expressing a great deal of care and anxiety, manifesting unrest or pain, fretting, chafing, being anxious or fearful. Since all of these reactions are undesirable from the point of view of their effects on the body, worry is a most undesirable characteristic.