Medicine: Healthy Wall Paper

Several years ago doctors paid attention to wall paper because they found that most of their patients poisoned by arsenic had inhaled it as dust from their green-tinted wall paper. Wallpaper makers ceased using arsenical dyes for their designs.

More recently doctors were interested in wall paper under which cockroaches and other room vermin made their nests. Cockroaches for a long time were thought by so able a scientist as Dr. Johannes Fibiger, rector of the University of Copenhagen, to be a cause of cancer (TIME, Nov. 8). Also, Paris green, once popular for killing cockroaches, bed bugs and like triflers, is made of arsenic.

Still more recently doctors have come to recognize the therapeutic values of colored wall coverings. That made the wall paper manufacturers glad; they performed researches. Last week they cheered, when Richard E. Thibault of Manhattan addressed their annual National Convention of Wall Paper Wholesalers & Retailers in Manhattan after this fashion:

"The definite effects of color combinations, when brought out through striking designs, are well known to psychologists. Color alone has not curative qualities, but color expressed in design has.

"It is a sign of national health that people are preferring this year larger designs and more pronounced colors. Yellows are coming to the front, tending to make oranges of reds. The stifling effect of great buildings and small apartment rooms is being offset by the use of scenic papers."