The Home.

Western Star, Issue 2154, 6 November 1897, Page 4

The Home.

Piano-playing Produces "Nerves." A corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Medicine has sent to that learned body a memoir in which he maintains that the numerous cases of chlorosis, neurosis, and neurasthenia observed among young girls is due to learning to play on the piano and the hours devoted to practising. He has drawn up careful statistics, from which he concludes that, among 6000 pupils obliged, before attaining the age of 12, to learn to play the piano, nearly 12 per cent suffer from nervous troubles. The author does not attempt to draw up statistics of the victims among persons who have to listen to their performances. Wrinkles on Women's Paces. It has been held by hyglenists, says " Science Sittings," that the wrinkles on a woman's face are often due tto impure air, a cause of which is not infrequently the exclusion of sunshine. The skin owes its beauty to the nerves whicn control the fine blood-vessels of the surface, whose work lends glow and clearness to the face. The nerves, in turn, owe their sensitiveness to the air, which is our chief nutriment, Inhaled by gallons hourly, and should be pure and invigorating. When the nerves are deadened by close air the fine muscles lose their tone, the tissue of the face shrinks, and these shrlnkings become wrinkles. So, let the sunshine and air into the house, even at the expense of carpets and furniture. Dust and Its Dangers. Many times and oft have I called attention to this subject. I may refer the reader now to a well-written paper that appeared in the " Daily Graphic" for the 4th October. I cannot endorse all the author's views, but he talks a good deal of sound sense, as in the following excerpts : —The most loathsome carpets are shaken and beaten within close proximity of human dwellings, mats are dusted in the very road while you pass, dry sweeping in rooms (tea leaves make no difference whatever) is practised every day, and the dirt stirred up from the floor to fall on the articles in the room, and, worst of all, into our lungs. Our housewives call this " cleaning," although in plain English it means contamination of the air of the locality. This is true, but in his next par. I am not altogether on the same platform with the writer. He says—" If a <grass seed is wafted on suitable soil it will grow in time,, and if a germ of disease is wilfully thrown into some suitable nook of our system it will germinate and generate its own species in incalculable numbers within a short time, and the disease is ready." With the " suitable soil" I agree. Our linden or lime trees shed myriads of seeds every summer, yet not one germinates. We must not have the impression that because we breathe disease germs they • germinate. Only in the weakly and debilitated do they find congenial soil, and as a rule a strong healthy man who does not abuse his constitution by over-eating or drinking may walk in the midst of pestilence and not be afraid.—Dr. Gordon Stables, in " Glasgow Weekly Herald."