BLUE IS RESTFUL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 135, 9 June 1926, Page 8

BLUE IS RESTFUL.

SICK KOOM COLOURS,

Wo know that animals are sensitive to colours. Eed enrages a bull, while for some unknown reason blue is disliked by sparrows and certain other birds. Even insects have similar preferences, for both ants and mosquitoes have been tested, and while the former do not like to be placed under blue glass, the latter prefer light to dark colours. Human beings vary in their colour preferences. Some people- cannot live in a room with red walls, and others get quite ill in a dark blue room. On the other hand red is a good colour for the smallpox patient, and medical men of old, who knew more than we think they did, always hung a room with red to prevent the wounds caused by this disease from leaving scars. Experiments made during the war show that certain colours are stimulating and others soothing. At a hospital at Denmark Hill colours were i;s<hl for patients sufi'ering from shellshock. A patient suffering with neurasthenia was cured of violent headaches b}' being put in a purple room, but when a patient, suffering from hysteria was placed in the same room he became hopelessly distressed and had to lie removed. He was then placed in a room the walls and furniture of which wore of a primrose yellow, and in this lie quickly recovered. This room had a sky' blue

ceiling. For a patient lying on his back the ceiling colour is more important than that of the walls. Roughly speaking, blue, mauve, and violet are the colours that sooth, while green and yellow stimulate the tired brain. But some colours have more particular effects. A j particular shade of violet causes growth of bone, an indigo produces body tissues, and a certain blue leads to the regeneration of the muscles and general bodily etrength. Therefore, this shade of blue is one to be recommended to all athletes.