CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11530, 17 March 1898, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

The question of whether the mental strain on young people during their period of scholastic instruction could be relieved by a rearrangement of school days

OVERPRESSURE OP , SCHOOL CHILDREN.

is one that deserves some attention. Would it be an advantage to abandon the Saturday'holiday in favour of one on Wednesday? This query is suggested by the work of a Berlin head-master who has been contributing to a German medical weekly some interesting results of his experimental studies on the question of the over-pressure of school children. The best working days, he finds, are Mondays and Tuesdays, and the first two days after a holiday. The insertion of a holiday in the middle of the week would, it is thought, tend to a revival of the mental freshness which only lasts, as things are, till Tuesday afternoon. The best working hours are, similarly, the first two in the morning, and should accordingly be reserved for the severer tasks; the three hours’ afternoon teaching in the higher schools is especially fatiguing, and there should always bo an interval in the middle. In Germany it is found that the most fatiguing subjects are mathematics, foreign languages, and —more than everything—gymnastics, and, for many children, singing and drawing: whilst religion, their own language, natural science, and history strain the children but little. Gymnastics, before or during teaching hours, have a retarding-influence upon mental work; the best restoratives are plenty of sleep, baths and walks. These facts and considerations may well form the basis of further inquiry, with a view not only to the rearrangement of the school week, but also to the distribution of holidays, the allocation of different kinds of studies and so forth, so as to minimise the strain upon the delicate organisations of children and produce the best educational results.

THE NEW TELEGRAPHY.

A new era in the history of apxilied electricity is likely to be be inaugurated by the advent of two new

machines called the “Telescriptor” and the “Zerograph” respectively. By the use of these instruments it is claimed that messages may be sent and printed in ordinary type by electricity. At present there are several forms of telegraphic type-printers in existence, but their prohibitive cost, together with the fact that they required a skilled telegraphist to manipulate them, has prevented telegraphic type-printing machines from coming into general use. The “ Telescriptor ” and the “ Zerograph ” mark a new era, because they are so simple in construction, and can bo supplied at very little more than the cost of an ordinary typewriter. For the first time they afford a reliable means of sending printed messages by the electric current; they are said to be thoroughly practical machines, which.'fulfil all the requisite conditions for

juse by private subscribers or business h ouses. jin: size, appearance and in manipulation the iTelescriptor resembles a typewriter, being jfurnished with a keyboard, on which itwenty-six letter keys are arranged in ‘alphabetical order, one figure or-sign being also controlled by each key. It is automatic in action, and requires no attention. You can. leave your office and feel confident that on your return you will find a correct printed record of any communications that have arrived during your absence, lord Roberts, in his book “•Forty-one Years in India ” states that during an engagement the native operators who had charge of the telegraphic instruments took fright and left their machines. He says that ho would have given many years of his life to have been able to decipher the messages that were coming in. With an instrument such as the Telesoriptor be would have had no difficulty at all, and it is evident that typeprinting telegraphs must play an important part in the warfare of the future. The Zerograph invented by Mr Leo Kamm, and now undergoing severe tests by the British Post Office, differs considerably in fits mode of working from the Telesoriptor, though achieving the same ends. It is more fitted for long-distance working than the Telesoriptor, and can also send more words a minute than this instrument. With the new telegraphy it would be possible for a man in Christchurch to communicate with a man in Timaiu without the necessity of either rising from his desk. As the correspondent writes a letter or reads his newspaper the little machine at his elbow prints the message, to which he can reply at once without undergoing the worry of the telephone or the delay of the telegraph.

ALCOHOL AND CANCEB.

Those people who have consistently maintained that alcohol is a “good creature of God” given to humanity for beneficent

purposes, will have their view strengthened by some rather striking statements concerning its curative properties that have ‘recently appeared in the Medical Council. From these statements it seems that alcohol, hypodermically administered, is a specific cure for that terrible disease cancer. Originally it was employed experimentally as the result of induction. It was inferred ■that if the constant imbibition of alcohol leads to connective tissue degeneration and its subsequent contraction and 1 destruction of imprisoned parenchyma, it would have a similar effect upon a cancerous mass if injected into it. Experiments were begun with 10 per cent solution, and this was gradually increased until the pure product was used in numerous cases. Reported success led to other trials equally as satisfactory, so that it now appears quite well proven that cancer in all parts that are accessible, and that means practically anywhere, is certainly curable by the systematic injection of strong or pure alcohol into the neoplastic mass. It is usual to inject into the substance of the mass from half a dram to a dram of very strong or pure alcohol. This causes a severe burning sensation fox a time, and it is followed within from fifteen to thirty minutes by a degree of alcoholic intoxication, which, however, soon passes off. Subsequent local congestion or inflammatory action is limited in duration, [and results in the destruction of cancer cells, the proliferation of new cells, and the eventual organisation of a dense, contracting, connective tissue. When the soreness due to one injection lias subsided, another is made, say within five, six, or seven days, according to circumstances. The growth becomes smaller and smaller, and eventually exists only as a stationary, benign, hard connective mass that may be ignored or that can be excised with ease. The medical authority quoted '■urges oil physicians to give the new method of treatment a trial and report the results. Experiments show that no harm ever results from the alcohol treatment, smd this being the case it is surely desirable that all sufferers should have the benefit of a trial of its curative powers.