SUNBURN MYSTERY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 18 (Supplement)

SUNBURN MYSTERY

NO TAN IN AFRICA. EXPERIENCE OF ACTRESS. A girl can obtain a good coat of taH in three days on a California beach, but she might spend her entire life in tho heart of Africa and escape without, a suggestion of sunburn, according to W. S. Van Dyke, director of ‘•TraderHorn.” Van Dyke had been asked to explain why Edwina Booth could travel through the Belgian Congo without displaying any dermatological proof of her exploits. People who have seen “Trader Horn ”

have remarked at the complete absence of sun-tan on Miss Booth. They wondered if the studio hadn’t “slipped up” on an important detail. Friends of Miss Booth on the coast, who expected to see her return with the complexion of an Indian squaw, also expressed surprise at the fact that she bad not evau developed a freckle as a souvenir of tiie 14.000-milo African journey. Bkin specialists and writers discussing general hygiene have remarked many times that the human body is, in a certain degree, a form of photographic plate and can only be tanned or coloured by the photographicallyactive (actinic) rays of light. This obviously furnishes the key to the Edwina Booth mystery. “Scarcely any members of our party; shoxved any effects from exposure te the -African sun,” remarked Mr. Van Dyke. “The reason is that in Africa, the year round, we have xvhat is known as a ‘high wet’ barometer. This condition is one of intense humidity, expressed not so much in tho form of clouds as in minute particles of water suspended in the air, especially in the higher altitudes. When the ultra-vio-let rays of the sun strike these drops the latter act much like microscopiu lenses. They diffuse the light vibrations and ‘bounce’ them from cue water-lens to another, so that by the time they reach the earth their force is spent and they have practically no effect on the pigment of the skin. “The infra-red rays, which arc the slowest in penetrating power, go through a humidity blanket, under certain conditions, and frequently one may be badly sunburned in Africa but discover that there is no trace of tan afterward, because the infra red rays nevei leave anv tan.”