INVALIDS AND READING

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 October 1931, Page 10

INVALIDS AND READING

DEAN INGE’S HUMOUR.

LONDON, September 1. v The value of books to those in illhealth was emphasised by Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter, the noted physician, and Dean Inge, speaking on hospital libraries at the annual conference of the Library Association, which opened at Cheltenham last night. Dean Inge went so far as to hint that some works—including his own —might provide a cure for insomnia! Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter said that the companionship of books for the sick was vitally necessary. “The cost of living,’ he went on, “has gone up. So has the cost of dying. While money is spent lavishly on improvements in medical equipment, there is urgent need for recasting the side which has to do with the mental welfare of inmates. “Every hospital/should have its library. But we need highly skilled librarians who not only love books but humanity. "The varied tastes of readers is surprising in hospitals. Men in distant lands have often found amusement in studying the pages of Bradshaw and planning trips for their own home leave.

“In one military hospital during the war there was at one time a great demand among patients for Prayerbooks and Testaments printed on India paper'. This was a puzzle until someone discovered that the inspiration was not a religious revival, but a shortage of cigarette papers. (Laughter.) ' “A librarian must have knowledge of the books to prescribe. He must not recommend a book on the Bronte family to a tubercular patient, since six of the children portrayed in that book died of consumption. (Laughter). Rather should he recommend the live;, of Voltaire, Emerson, and Ruskin, who all lived to an advanced age in spite of the disease.”

Dean Inge observed that he had never heard it suggested that doctors might prescribe certain authors in cases of persistent insomnia.” I have reason to believe that my own works are especialy valuable in these cases, because I have often found my wife sleeping peacefully with one of my. own books upside down on her knee.” (Laughter). “We do not do enough reading aloud.” said Dean Inge. “The old practice of reading aloud in the family circle is a very delightful one. I was brought up on it. “Reading aloud takes one along at just the right pace. Most people read too quickly. I can read books of all kinds except trashy novels, obsolete theology, books of field sports, except when the hunter is properly mauled by wild beasts, and mathematics, which I am congenitally unable to understand. “As one gets on one should read less- I do not read sio much philosophy and theology as I used to, because if I agree with the writer I know most of what he wants to tell me, and if I do not his arguments make no impression on me.” (Laughter).