Collected Wisdom is feeling a bit feverish today. Maybe we'll try one of these purple pills we found at the very back of the medicine cabinet.
Wow. Pink lizards with Scottish accents discussing Descartes. Cool.
THE QUESTION: If fevers are the body's natural defence against disease and infection, wrote Rosemary Chesney of Burlington, Ont., why do people take Tylenol or Aspirin to bring down their fever?
THE ANSWER: “Moderate elevation of body temperature can be beneficial in terms of enhancing the function of the immune system and elevated temperatures inhibit the growth of certain viruses and bacteria,” writes Joel Lexchin of the Faculty of Health at York University.
However, he says fever also has its costs, including increased oxygen consumption, increased metabolic demands, increased breakdown of proteins and increased production of glucose. These processes might be detrimental to the elderly.
“That being said,” he writes, “there is no proof that treating fever with Aspirin or acetaminophen (Tylenol) has any beneficial effect on outcomes or prevents complications.” The bottom line is that if people are uncomfortable due to a fever, they can reduce it with Aspirin or Tylenol, “but if they are not uncomfortable, there is no reason to treat it.”
THE QUESTION: Why is the letter E the biggest and first on eye charts? asked Wilma Sayer of Victoria.
THE ANSWER: The Snellen chart - the standard eye chart - begins with E simply because that's how Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen designed the original, writes Peter Gorman of Toronto.
Angela Forth, an optician in Peterborough, Ont., explains that, at 20 feet, each letter on a certain line of the Snellen chart should be legible to a normal eye. “This is commonly known as 20/20 vision,” she says. The “E” on the first row represents a visual acuity of 20/200. If a patient can read only this line, it means that he or she can see at 20 feet what a normal eye can see at 200 feet.
And Mary Field, chief administrative officer for national affairs at the Opticians Association of Canada in Winnipeg, adds that the reason the letters start big and get smaller is that it gives the patient confidence and a sense of success as he or she reads down the chart.
Inevitably, most people will get to a row that they can't read, she says. However, if you started with the smallest letters and progressed to the largest, “the person would start off with a defeated attitude.”
HELP WANTED
If you know the answers to any of these questions, let's hear from you.
- How many goats does it take to produce the same amount of milk as a cow? Cyril Belshaw of Vancouver wants to know.
- “On a hot day, dogs can pant for hours (it seems) without hyperventilating,” writes Mary K. McIntyre of Toronto. How come?
- On U.S. police shows, says Paul Dalcourt of Brantford, Ont., when a police officer is dishonourably discharged, he loses his pension. “Doesn't a pension plan belong to you no matter what? Does this same practice apply in Canada?”
Send your questions and answers to wisdom@globeandmail.com. Include your name, location and a daytime phone number.
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