health.

Wairarapa Standard, Issue 2067, 13 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

health.

Coffee and its Effects.—New York has a doctor who has busied himself lately writing pithy articles on some of the baptized ’evils of society. His latest manifesto is on “ How coffee affects peopleand the aim of the paper is to show that coffee is one of the most powerful drugs in the list of medicines. The proof of its power as a drug is shown by the fact that it is used to a greater extent than any other as an antidote for poisons, both animal and vegetable. He urges that he does not desire to reach the ear of the public in general, but of those who have pains in the region of the heart, oppressed breathing and an irregular pulse; those who arc exceedingly nervous and unable to sleep at nigbt; those who have a full feeling, dizziness and pains of n neuralgic character in the bead ; who have nausea and sourness of the stomach without having transgressed the laws of life ; who have pains in the liver, a yellow skin with eyes of the same sort; and lastly, who have hemorrhoids. If the doctor supposes he has left out one or two of all creation from his list he may be right, but he is certainly mowing a wide swath, and may honestly say that he is after the ear of the public. To these he offers one suggestion. Omit coffee for a time, throw physic to the dogs, and find out if the trouble, after all, is not in the drug used as a beverage. In moderate doses coffee raises the blood pressure and accelerates the heart. Now, says the doctor, heart disease is in the main an easily prevented disease, and it is very frequently due to the excessive use of coffee. He enumerates several instances where he had been called in to prescribe, and had found bis patients given up to die, but there was really nothing the matter but the breakfast drug. He wisely suggests that in this day of sudden deaths we are called upon to review our methods of eating and living, in order to get at the cause or causes. “ Tim heart and brain require rest as well as other organs of the body.” If the vessels in the head are kept distended we have, as a warning, dizziness and pain, and, if the warnings are unheeded, apoplexy. So with the heart. So ehoit arc its intervals of rest when beating at seventy.two to eighty-four, that we can hardly conceive it. Add to this the stimulus that sends it up to ninety, and we must produce disease. He concludes that for our regular meals and at evening parlies we should substitute the simpler cocoa or bouillon, and escape danger.

Sleeping Rooms— lt is to be regretted t!i;U paperings or carpetings should ever be used in the sleeping room. Alas, what evil is lurking in the area of the foursquare walls which encompass us 1 What enemy is that, though trodden upon, yet is not subdued ? Let the walls of our chambers be catsomined and the carpets removed from the floors. Let the crevices be filled with putty and the floor neatly painted or stained. A rug at the bedside, with small ones at the bureau and commode will relieve the nakedness of the floor. These should be carried out weekly, thoroughly shaken and exposed to the sun and wind. Towels and wash cloths used during the day should never remain in the room at night. I have seen wash cloths, used day after day in a sleeping room, become sour and musty, emitting a strong odor, both disagreeable and unhealthy. The water-can and the entire toilet set must be kept perfectly sweet and pure. I do not mean merely clean to the eye, but clean enough for a chemist’s use. Attention must also be called to the tooth-brush, which should always be thoroughly cleansed after using, and placed, handle down, in an upright holder. I have found odor enough about one tooth-brush to infect the atmosphere of a common sleepingroom. In regard to ventilation, open as many doors and windows as permissible, avoiding a draught; but morning air is indispensable to tbo health of the sleeper. Let the bed stand as near the centre of the room as possible, but on no account close to the wall. No one housekeeper may be able to carry out ail of these suggestions, but it is the ideal of housekeeping as it ought to be. which should be held up to the eye of the reader, (hat each one may choose what she can host carry out in her daily practice.

How Long to Sleep— The latest authority on this vexed question, Dr. Mai ins, says that Hie proper amount o£ sleep to he taken by a. man is eight hours. So far as regards city life, this is probably correct. Proverbial wisdom does not apply to modern conditions of social cxi.-tence. •' Five hours for a man, seven for a woman, and nine for a pig,” says one proverb ; and a second, quoted by Mr. tta/.litt in his “ English Proverbs," declares that '• .Nature requires five, custom gives seven ; laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven."

These conclusions were, however drawn from observations of country life. Physical fatigue is more easily overcome than 'intellectual. Which of us, when travelling in the country or abroad, or in any way separated from tiio ordinary processes of thought and anxiety, has not found that lie could, without ditliculty, do with a couple of hours less sleep than ho was in the habit of takin l ' Men, however, who follow any intellectual pursuit are exceptionally fortunate if the process of restoration occupy less than seven hours. (ioothe owned to requiring nine. Soldiers and sailors, on the other hand, like laboring men, do with much less quantity. I am afraid to say how few hours the Duke of Wellington regarded as essential. A schoolmaster under whom I once studied, a hardworking man at the acquisition of languages proclaimed loudly that he never took more than tire hours sleep. The hour at which lie rose in the morning gave some color to this assertion. Only in after life did I discover that & two hours post-prandial siesta was not included in (hat allowance.

Bald - Headedness. There is much wearisome and needless discussion about bald - headed people. Wash your bead thoroughly once a week with a lather of soap and water, rinse all the soap out, and rub the scalp lively until it is entirely dry. Never wear an unventilatcd bat, or any bat at all when you can avoid it. Wear r, straw hat, instead of felt, whenever possible. Give your scalp plenty of sunlight also plenty of air. Don’t smoke too much. Follow these directions, and you will never be baldheaded. Even if your hair has begun to get thin, it will revive. Canadians are bald because they wear fur caps. It is the wearing of hot and unnatural head coverings that makes the hair fall out. If a quite bald man should go bare-headed in the sun and air a year, it is likely that his hair would come on again, and ho would never take cold. Ucmember Ibis: Nature meant your hair to keep your head warm, not fur caps or felt hats. Felt hats and silk hats arc an abomination. These are the wretches that make so many men bald-headed. It is not their mighty intellects or their excessively fine nervous systems. If you render the hair superfluous by making bats to do its duty for it, nature takes it away. She will not tolerate senseless things.

Not Healthful— A sleep! ng-room should be furnished plainly. Adornment with bits of bric-a-brac and dainty odds and ends adds much to (be beauty of the apartment, but the custom is not to be commended on hygienic grounds. Japanese wall-pictures, photographs, fans, dried ferns, grasses and a hundred souvenirs of merry and sentimental experiences often cover the wails, forming lurking places of disease germs and the emanations that even the most healthful body will throw off during sleep. Tim less nf tins bric-a-brac about in sleeping-rooms the bettor. Only such ornaments as can be en-ilv dii-icd should In'admitted. The rooms should be thoroughly aired daily, and flic fewer carpets the better,