EFFECTS OF LIGHT ON LUNATICS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 67, 8 July 1876, Page 2

EFFECTS OF LIGHT ON LUNATICS.

"Galignani" cites from the "Gazette de Hopitaux a curious articlejsn this subject. Dr. Ponza, director of the lunatic asylum at Alessandria (Piedmont), having conceived the idea that the solar rays might have some curative power in disease 6f the brain, communicated his views to Father Secchi, of Home, who replied in the following terms: —"The idea of studying the disturbed state of lunatics in connection with magnetic perturbations, and with the colored,'' especially violet light of the sun, is of remarkable importance, - and'.. L consider it well worth feeing cultivated." Such light is easily obtained by filtering the solar rays through a glass of that color. "Violet," adds Father Secchi> ■> " has-r'something melancholy and depressive about it, which physiologically causes low spirits ; hence, no doubt, poets have draped melancholy in fcioleft garments. •. Perhaps, violel"'light may calm the nervous excitement of unfortunate maniacs^".__ He then in his letter,, advises Dr. Poriza to .perform his experiments in rooms the walls of which are painted of the same ~b~6lor as the glass panes of the windows, which should be as numerous as possible, in order to favor the action of solar light, so that it may be admissible at any hour of the day. The patients should pass the night in rooms oriented to the east and the south, and painted and glazed as above. Dr. Ponza, following the instructions of the learned jJesuit, prepared several rooms in the jnanher described, and kepfcse'veral patients -there under observation-. One ofvthem, 'vjaffected with morbid taciturnity, became gay'- and affable after three honrs'~stay" in a .red chamber; another, a maniac who refused all food, asked for some breakfast after having stayedr twenty-four hours in the same red chamber. In a blue one, a highly excited madman with a strait waistcoat on was kept all day ; an hour after, he appeared much, calmer. The action of blue light is very intense on the optic nerve, and seems to cause; a sort of oppression. A patient was 'made, to pass the night in a violet chamber ; - on the following day he beggecVDr. Ponza, to send him home, because he'felt'himself ; <Sired ; and, indeed, he has been-weil ever since. Dr. Ponza's conclusions from his experiments are these:—"The violet rays are, of all others, those that possess the most intense electro-chemical ppwer ; the red light is also very-, rich on the contrary,' is "quite" dSvtfid of them, as well as of chemical and electric ones. Its beneficent influence is hard to explain ; as it is the absolute negation fii all excitement, it succeeds admirably in calming the j furious excitement of maniacs."