Physical Effect of Colours.

Otago Witness, Issue 2603, 3 February 1904, Page 64

Physical E ffect of Colours.

Ifc is quite tho fad nowadays to have roonw where one colour predominates, green rooms, rod rooms, blue rooms, etc. In view of this fad it is interesting to read an article whioh appears -in the October number of "Medical Talk for the Home" on tho peculiar influ-sne© of different colours upon the body through the mind. Purple, it is stated, is the most dangerous colour, having a fatal effect upon th© mind. If a person were confined for a month in a room with purplo walls, with no colour but purple around him, by the end of the month he would be a madman. Scarltt is as bad, but has a different effect. It produces a _ madness that drives a person to kill his friends, especially his nearest relatives. Scarlot has something of this effect on animals. It will drive a bull or a tiger to desperation, causing thorn to fight till death. Blue has a drug-like effect on the brain. Ifc stimulates the brain and excites the imagination, but if you get too much of it and cannot get away from it, its effect is terrible.

Green is the king of eolouis. It is soothing in its effect, preserves and strengthens the eyesight, and no amount of it can do any harm. The Eky, which appears to be blue, is really white, tinged with green, and ifc is only the distance and clearness that make it appoar blue. Green is so soothing that it helps tho system to fight disease, and. therefore, all sick-rooms and hospital wards should have- everything possible about them coloured green. Sage green is th© most soothing tint of all. Yellow is one» of th© healthiest and chec-ricet colours there is, and will make a dark 100 m bright where even green would be cold and depressing. But solitarj confinement within a yellow cell for a month or six weeks would hopeilcssly weaken th© system and produce chronic hysteria.

Sheer, dead-white walls will destroy the> eyesight in r short tirno, while the effect? on the brain is- so rnnddening that thei blindne?is is aunost; a relief. An example of this is found in th© Ai'ctic explorers, who have to wear green-tinted glassc-s to avoid enow blindness, which really is white blindness.

Electric Light and Health. — As we watch th-o electric cables being laid in their subterraneous beds along 0110 street after another, and creeping gradually into tho suburbs of all our large towns, in ruminating on th© deadly power shortly to speed) along the-m we are apt to overlook another factor in their future rolo which is cf a different sort. This is the ultimate effect on the health of the people consequent on the introduction of -electric light. It is estimated that the death-rat© will be lowered by 1 in 1000 when electric has supplanted! all other lights. This will mean a reduction of 40,000 deaths annually in th© United Kingdom. A single gas jet consumes as much air as five people, and ghes off much carbonic acid and suiphurous fumes. The drowsy feeling which supervene in a cloyed room where gas is burning is r&.illy nothing less than partial poisoning, and is the cause (says the Liverpool Post) of more consumption and bronchitis than is usually supposed. Lamps and candles are as bad. On the other hand, ejectric light docs not consume any air, and th© only effect on bodily health produced is good, and akin to that of the sun.

— A sinol© leaf of the parasol magnolia of Ceylon affords shad© for 15 to 20 persons.

Eai€3rs of Poultry should use Nrsriro and Blair's Game and Poultry Meal, which 19 composed of the best ground bones and shells, specially prepared to meet the requirements of the last-increasing poultry industry. It 13 made up in 341b bags, at Is 9d each. Ask your storekeeper foi it.