THE ROSE CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8093, 10 January 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ROSE CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS

It is within very recent date that experimenting scientists, including the most reputable cf physicians, have learned that perfumes are really medicines given in another form —through the nostrils , One might go back further and find that medicinal perfumes are only rediscovered how, for they were really discovered centuries ago, when incense and myrrh were used to cure tils as well as for worship. Sweetsmelling balms were carried to the sick, and the doctors of that day healed the body and the spirit through heavy odours. It is well known that the fakirs of India and the medicine men of the wild tribes of ail countries work by means of perfumes and herbs.

(Every woman knows that a bottle of ammonia held to the nostrils will help a headache. Our grandmothers used the camphor bottle, and this restorative is still used as the home medicine. The vinaigrette and the little smelling-bottle of all kinds are filled with a salts of a powder of sweetsmelling odour based upon medicinal properties, and there is no doubt that a few whiffs will help a headache and sometimes completely cure it. And now roses are advocated for many of the aches and pains of life which frequently arise' from over-wrought or disordered nerves.

It has been discovered that the rose will cure a headache. Its perfumes act as a medicine upon the nerves. Its color—particularly if deep red—soothes the senses through the eyes, and its cleanliness and medicinal properties generally act upon the system, not only as a curative, but as a tcnic. The sweeter the rose is the better, for the sweetness of this flower is of such peculiar delicacy that it neither:_eloy= : -VLpGlfoe.J'SSif'il*.- H9F-- v^SSt''upon r the * senses. Other flowers with heavy scent make one languid. But the rose is invigorating; and it is known now that the concentrated rose—that is, the natural smell as obtained from roses in great quantities- I —will certainly act upon the person as though he or she had been fanned "by a breeze. The rose curist asserts that if the scent is inhaled directly from the very heart of the flower it is more beneficial to the patient than though it were inhaled at long distance through an essence or an extract. There are different ways of administering the rose" medicine. The patient can make a pillow of roses; on this she should lay her head, taking care that half a dozen of the blooms are so arranged that they point towardsf the face. In this attitude her nose and mouth are buried in their sweetness. The idea is to go to sleep on a bed of roses ; when you wake up your headache will be cured.

The best rose is the garden rose, as it retains its red rose scent without having lost anything by being cultivated. One of the rose treatments is through the eyes, for the nervous man or woman —people who cannot endure the sisrht of blood, who cannot see suffering, whom an injured animal will unnerve for a day. Uncleanliness and disorder that strike upon the sight act upon them as though they had had a fit of .sickness. An unhappy combination of colors will frequently affect the nerves and produce a headache." When people are as sensitive as this they can be cured by the color treatment, and this color cure is now actively in operation in many places. When undergoing a severe nervous strain it is a'good plan to take a rose and hold it to the nostrils : breathe deeply of the scent.