Value of Laughter. Starvation Cure Dangers.

Otago Witness, Issue 2784, 24 July 1907, Page 76

Value of Laughter.

Starvation Cure Dangers.

There ought to be socdetde*. formed- fort the encouragement of laughter. Goldsmith, who was always laughing, tells -us of "tho loud laugh that spoke the vacant .mand," and the scornful Byron says, "And /if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis thai 1 mayj not weep." Many people are afraid to laugh, beepunsa they think it is not $ood form. They are wrong, • and the writers just quoted are often wrong: Nature- cvii dently intended ue to laugh, or children . wouiri not know how. Nature has evolved laughter in the race to develop and mature^ our children. Laughter ie iealttoful, .and* provocative of good morals as weU as good health. Hamie^aays thai "one may omdlei and smile, and bo *. villain," and so one , might; but no -one could laugh and isogb ana be a villain. To smirk, grin, guffaw, or smile is not to laugh, A good, wholesouled, hearty laugh is a panacea for many ills, andi worth a doctor's prescriptions

In certain forms of gastric or stomach ulcer a so-caled starvation cure ha* been largely 'employed without" m«dh thought as* to ite general effects aside from those on the local process. Or Redohmahn. however, informs, us, *s "the result -of an. extended! erperience, that the method of treatment known by this -name may be the .cause of? numerous complications. In the first piaco we have to deal with the results of tiha diminished nutrition, weakness, vertigo, disturbances of the heart, etc., which may be developed +0 such an extent that the treatment must be stopped for a time at least, if not altogether. Dr B<eich<mann has also - noted in a number of instances the production of suppurating mumps, which ha believes can be ascribed to the increased number of pas-producing germs which collect in tihe mouth and elsewhere us thd result of an insufficient oleausin? of tihe inner skin by the act of chewing and of •> dkniniahed flow of saliva. In order to pro* tect tihe patient against ibe»e serious oom* plications the mouth, and particttlariy the inner ekin of the cheeks, should be kept as clean as possible with appropriate-anii-septio solutions, of which Dr Beochmsum hut found a * per cent, solution of boraede •cid' among the most satisfactory ._

— Clara: "One- evening last week Jack Gay© calmly informed me that he would kiss me or die in the attempt/ Ethel: "Good gracious! And did lie kus you?'' "Well, you haven't heard of his death, have you?"