The Ladies’ Magazine.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2646, 30 October 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Ladies’ Magazine.

TEETH AND HOW TO CARE FOR THEM.

There are few mothers who are not tempted at times to wish that teeth had been eliminated from the human form—it is such a nuisance to knock ' into, children the importance of toothcleaning. * “Nancy, have you remembered your teeth?” “Willy, have you not used a tooth brush this morning?” are painfully familiar cries in most households, yet not half so much as the effort to get youngsters to repair their omission in cleanliness, or to accompany them to the dentist. It is not much consolation during this struggling period to know that rebellious Willy and .Nancy will thank you later and revile you if you yield to your inclination to give up the fight. Yet insistence on care of the teeth is one thing that no thoughtful mother will let up on. Just why it is important to force particularncss in dental hygiene. Because health as well as looks suffer from neglect of the teeth. Cleansing the teeth at least three times a da v is not merely a nicety of good breeding; it is. a'health essential. " " "' ' Not alb mothers realise that the first process of digestion is dependent upon the teeth. The first step in the conversion of food into flesh and blood comes with the fluid from the salivary glands caused by mastication. It has been suggested that the sense of taste is given us to insure against bolting the food. Without proper chewing the stomach cannot digest as it should, food is not assimilated, and mal-nutrition follows with its train of bad effects on the health. There are dyspeptics, thin, nervous, down-in-their-luck, who owe most of their discomfort to poor teeth, if they but realise it. Since (life without health as really worth while, the importance of a thorough understanding of teeth needs cannot be overestimated. Frequently it happens that mothers fuss, yet do not entirely realise those needs. To have good teeth takes more than periodical visits to the dentist, necessary as those visits are. Dentists cannot preserve teeth, they can but prevent speedy decay . Without help on the parentis or child’s part big dentist’s bills are run up in vain. If mothers instead of fighting children without giving reasons would explain to them clearly just what happens ,if. their duty to their teeth is neglected, ■ there will be fewer rows and better-looking mouths. First show how particles of food allowed to remain in the mouth ferment and caiise ache, and toothache .means visits to that dreaded being—the dentist. Then having roused the child to a sense of danger tell him just what must.be done to prevent trouble. If a tooth were kept perfectly clean; ifc? would probably never decay/’ but as fthat desirable state is out of the question, it must be 'kept as clean as can be. The mouth should be tborougldy rinsed night and morning, and with an ghtiseptie ~W9iSh; a little lime water or ppda 7,-„ater is. good if one cannot afford special '.preparations. '* The teeth should also be brushed with a good tooth powder at least twice a day, "preferably after each meal. In brushing the teeth use the brush from the gum toward the cutting edge to avoid irritating the gums or causing them to recede. This means a downward stroke on the upper teeth and an upward stroke on the lower ones. A useful way to brush that is often neglected is a rotary motion on -the .grinding surface of the teeth to remove every particle of food. The importance of dental floss cannot be too strongly stated. This should never he used except 1 when alone, and should never be neglected then after each meal. At the first sign of trouble with the teeth consult a dentist, and visit him quarterly just by the way of precaution. - Watch the genera)! health, be careful in taking strong medicines except through a tube, and avoid sudden extremes of heat and cold.

What She Wore.

The wealthiest young woman • in America attended a public function in New York not long ago, and this is the account of her appearance: “There was nothing ofl what the women call ‘style’ in Miss Helen Gould’s appearance. She Avore a small, black hat which could have been hidden completely jn the croAvn of a ‘Merry Widow’ hat, and which was trimmed only with a bmv of black velvet and a modest buckle. Her Avlxite shirtwaist Avith a neck ribbon Avas of the simplest order; and a black cloth skirt and a short black coat Avere alike simple, quiet and ladylike. Not a piece of jewellery was visible anywhere.” And then the report adds these significant Avords: “So simple was Miss Gould’s attire that she Avas an unconscious rebuke to the overdressed girls and Avomon around her ivho could ill afford the clothes they Avore, And it must bo confessed that the quietly-dressed millionairess looked the Avoman that, she is, Avhile the Avomen around her—‘the less said the better.’ ” How true it is that Avomen who .“dress,” , as we use the word, are the women Avho find it necessary to do so—' generally to cover up some mental or social deficiency. A woman who feels sure of herself doesn’t have to “dress.’’

OUR BABIES.

(By “Hygeia.”) Published under the auspices of the Society for the, Promotion of the Health of Women and Children. CORRESPONDENCE. We regret that owing to ffho Conference of tile Society in Wellington this Aveek there has been no time to reply to “Biter.” The subject is one of .such importance that it cannot ho dismissed in a feAV lines* PARENTHOOD AND RACE CULTURE. The following extracts from “Parenthood and Race Culture,” by Dr C. W. Saleeby, which Avas published during the present year, arc of paramount importance: Our prime assumption from beginning to end is that “there is no Avealth but life,” :. . . .We have been considering man from the point of view of what is transmitted to offspring by parents. But-a word must’he said as to the other factor Avhich, with .heredity, determines the character <jf the •individual—and that factor is the ‘environment,’. P wish merely to note, the most important aspect of the environment of human beings, and to observe that historians hitherto have wholly ignored it; yet its influence is incalculable. I refer to Motherhood. Heredity Gives Potentialities, Environment Develops these Potentialities and Turns Them to Good or Evil Account. One might have the most perfect system of selection of the finest and highest individuals for parenthood; but the babies Vhose potentialities—heredity gives no >.,more —are so splendid are always, will be always, dependent upon motherhood. What Avas the state of motherhood during -the decline and fall of the Roman Empire? This factor counts in history, and always will count so long as. three times in evety century, the' only wealth of na-tions'-is’reduced to dust, and is raised agath from helpless infancy.. As to Rome, Ave know little, whatever may he suspected; but -we know that here in the heart Of-the "greatest Empire in history—and it is at the heart that Empires rot —thousands of mothers go out every day to tend dead machines, Avhilst their own flesh and blood, with whom lies the Imperial destiny, are tended anyhow or not at all. It may yet be said by some enlightened;historian of the future that the living wealth Of this people in the tAventieth century began to be eaten aAvay by the cancer which Ave call “married avomen’s labor,” and that, as Avill.be evident to that, historian’s readers, its damnation •was sure.-.. \ THE DESTINY OF THE RACE IN THE HANDS OF ITS MOTHERS. To-day our .historians and politicians think, in terms of regiments-.vjind tariffs .and. -Dreadnoughts;' the ’time will e'ome 'when .they must think in terms of babies and motherhood. We must, think in such terms too if we wish Great Britain to be much'longer great? Meanwhile some of us see the perennial slaughter of babies in this land, and the deterioration of many for every "one killed outright, the waste of mothers’ travail and tears/and we recall Ruskin’s avo rus: Nevertheless, it is open. I repeat, to serious question, Avhich I leave to the reader’s pondering, whether, • among, national. that, oh Souls of a good quality may not at last turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one? Nay, in some far-away and yet undreamt-of hour I can even imagine that’ England may cast all thoughts of possessive Avealth back to the barbaric nations among.whom they first arose; and that while the sands of the Indus andladamant of Golconda may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash from the turban of the slai r e, she, as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a Heathen one, -and be able to lead forth her Sons, saying: “These are MY Jewels.” Had all Roman mothers been Cornelias, Avould Rome have fallen ? Consider the imitation mothers—no longer mammalia—to be found in certain classes to-day—others Avho should be ashamed to look any tabby-cat in the , face; consider the ignorant and downtrodden mothers amongst our loAver classes,- and - ask : whether these -things : are not making-history. Gibbon does not enlighten us much j on such vital matters,, but my atteri- ] tioii has-been called to the following j passage, not irrelevant here. It ris i from the “Attic Nights” of .Aulus Gel- I jins, Book xii; chap, r, Avritten about a.d. 150. A ROMAN ON MOTHERHOOD. “Once Avhen I was with the philosopher Favorinus Avord was brought to him that the wife of one of his disciples .'Rad just given birth to a son. Mjbet us go,” said he, “to inquire after the mother and to congratulate the father.” The latter Avas a noble of Senatorial rank. All of us Avho were present accompanied him to the house, and Avent in with him. Meeting the father in the hall he embraced and congratulated him, and, sitting doAvn, inquired hoAv his wife had come through the ordeal. And when he heard that the young mother, overcome with fatigue, was now sleeping, he began to r.^-c ak more ffreely. “Of course,” said he, “she will suckle the child herself.” And when the girl’s mother said that her daughter must be spared, and nurses obtained iii-order that the heavy strain of nursing the child should not be added to what she had already gone through, “I beg of you, dear lady, said he, “to alloAV her to be a Avhole mother to her child. Is it not against Nature, and being only half a mother, to give birth to a child, and then at once to send him aAvay —-to have nourished Avith hexown blood and an her oAvn body a something that she had never seen, and then to refuse it her own milk now that she sees it living, a human being; demanding a mother’s care? Or are you one of those Avho think that Nature gave a avoman breasts, not that she might feed her children, but as pretty hillocks to give her bust a pleasing contour? Many indeed of our pre-sent-day ladies —whom you arc far from resembling—"do try to dry up • and repress the sacred fount of the body, the 'nourisher of the human race, even, at the risk they run from turning back and corrupting their milk, lest it should take off from the charm of their beauty. In doing this they act Avith the same folly as those who, by the use of drugs and so forth, endeavor to destroy the very embryo in their bodies lest a furrow should inar the smoothness of their skin and they