PICTURES THAT KILLED

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8618, 9 May 1906, Page 2

PICTURES THAT KILLED

HOW WALL PAINTINGS MAY INFLUENCE HEALTH.

Pittsburgh the home of the Carnegie Steel Works, has a hospital which has the privilege of being under the direo* tion of persons possessed by an enthusiasm for art. Such a belieFhad they in the beneficial power of art- that th»y thought ifc would cure the eick. They therefore got artists to paint pictures on the whitewashed walls. Instead of getting well, all the patients who were exposed to the influence of art became worse, and some of them died. The doctors — prosaic vandals that they are — held a consultation, and decided that the art cure was a disastrous failure, and that t"he pictures must be effaced. This truly pathetic little story is told by the " British Medical Journal," which, in discussing the issue ""raised, suggests that, despite the tragedy of the Pittsburg Hospital, art niay^ yet play an important part as an aid to salutation. Certain colours", we are told, have been shown to have microbicide properties, and a series of esperimonts mad© by famous "medical scientists of the past are described. ' COLOURS AND BACILLI. Among these were Dr BeaufiJe, of Paris, who recently performed a 6srie3 of experiments for the pm-pcse of determining the action of colours on bacilli. He found that the effects of paints varied according to their colour. Ultramarine blue, for example, neutralised in twenty-four hours the effect of the pyocyapic bacillus, and after nine days this microbe became inert. Th© grey paint was negative in its' effects, and the maroon gave results only at the end of fourteen days. " While it Avould doubtless be rash to dispense with other processes of disinfection and trust entirely to colours, the investigations to - which reference has been made supply an additional argument for doing away with wall papers, which are as insanitary as they arc often unsightly, and painting our walls," says the writer. "To sanguine minds the experiments may even ©s&rn to justify the hop& that a time may com© when we shall find sanitary salvation in frescoes, and when beauty and health will be combined in the dwelling in a manner undreamt of by the president of the Royal Society of British Artists."