ROSES AND "NERVES."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7695, 2 May 1903, Page 6

ROSES AND " NERVES."

♦ ■ NEW CURE SPECIALLY RECOMMENDED TO MILLIONAIRES. **. (London .Express.) It is within very recent date that experimenting scientists, including the most reputable of physicians, have learned that perfumes are really medicines given in another form — through tbe nostrils. One might go further back, and find that medicinal perfumes are only re-discovered now, for the jf were really discovered centuries ago, when incense and myrrh were used to cure ills as well as for worship. Sweet-smelling 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 fakir of India and the medicine men- of the wild tribes of all 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 a home medicine. The vinaigrette and the little smellingbottle, of all kinds, are filled with a salts or a powder of sweet-smelling 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 overwrought or disordered nerves. - It has been discovered that {he rose will cure a headache. Its perfume acts as a medioine upon the nerves. Its colour — 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 tonic. The sweeter the rose is the better, for the sweetness of this flower is of such peculiar delicacy that it neither clogs up the nostrils nor palls upon the senses. Other flowers with heavy scent make one languid, and it is known now that the concentrated rose-r---that is, the natural smell as obtained from roses in great quantities — will certainly act upon the person as though he or she had been fanned by a breeze. The rose ciirist 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 distances 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 toward the face. In this attitude, . her nose and mouth are buried ia their sweetness. The idea is to go to sleep on a bed of roses ; when you wake up, your headache will be cured. The besfc 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 sight 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 colours will frequently affect the nerves and produce a headache. When people are as sensitive as this, they can be cured by the colour treatment, and this colour cure is now : actively in operation in many places. When undergoing a severe nervous strain, ifc is a good plan to take a rose and hold it to the nostrils j breathe deeply^ of the scent.