COLOR CURES

Evening Star, Issue 18998, 21 July 1925, Page 9

COLOR CURES

The day seems to be coming quickly when lights of various colors and strengths will bo employed like drugs in tho treatment of disease, writes ‘‘A Student of Medicine ” in the ‘ Daily Chronicle.’ Violet light, containing ultra-violet rays, of course, has aroady reached tin's position. It is now prescribed by doctors all over the world for a host of different maladies, and administered by assistants, specially trained to this work, with as little concern as a dose of aspirin. There is reason to think that green light may come to occupy a place_ of almost similar importance. Some time ago, at any rate, a doctor pointed out that the " terrible sh-eplessness_ of “ sleepy sickness ” is influenced in a beneficial way by using green' lampshades in the sick loom. Tins statement has since been confirmed by others. It has been found, moreover, that a variety of types of insomnia are influenced by green light, which seems to exert a specially sootning influence on tho brain. Thus a man who cannot sleep in the dark, and who is even more miserable when he switches on tho light,, sometimes falls asleep naturally when he covers his electric bulbs with close-fitting green shades. The idea lias been mooted recently that tho yellow and red rays in ordinary white' light (which is composed, of course, of the colors violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red) stimulate certain parts of tho brain, and that these parts, when active, prevent tho onset of sleep. Tho green rays, on the contrary, possess an opposite effect. These, it must he admitted, are theories and nothing more. The fact, however, that insomnia in some cases is favorably influenced by green light is not rendered loss significant on. that account. Rod light is now being studied very carefully. It is interesting to recall the fact that in the days when smallpox was widely prevalent in England it was employed frequently to prevent “ pitting ” of the face—the idea being that tho pock marks healed better under its influence than under that of ordinary daylight. The reality of this belief has often been called in question during recent years. But there is now some ground for the view that it did not entirely lack justification. Wounds exposed to red light are now known to heal in a manner which encourages the idea that the rays exercise a definite influence for good.