MEDICAL SCIENCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1010, 27 June 1911, Page 4

MEDICAL SCIENCE.

A REMARKABLE ADVANCE. PAIN MADE VISIBLE. Every human being has a halo which varies in size and distinctness according to good or illhealth, makes pain visible, and enables the expert to distinguish between intelligent aud dull individualities. This is the remarkable discovery which, after four years ot close and continuous study and almost numberless experiments, Ur W. J. Kilner, the prominent Loudon physician, claims to have made. He asserts that be has succeeded in rendering actually visible the halos with which every human being is surrounded.

The investigations which have produced this remarkable result have been carried out solely from a medical point of view, and on strictly scientific lines. An Express representative has been enabled to test the claims made under the direction of Dr Eelkiu, the specialist, who has taken a deep personal interest in the investigations.

A WONDERFUL FLUID. The apparatus, if apparatus it can be termed, consists of a number of what are technically termed “ spectuaranine ” glass screens, each about four inches in length by an inch and a-half in breadth. These screens are made each of two plates of very thin glass, between which, hermetically sealed in, is a wonderful fluid which Dr Kilner has discovered. The screens vary iu colour. .Some are red, others blue, varying in depth of colour to suit the eyes of the investigator. When Dr Felton had briefly explained the processes which had led up to Dr Kilner’s actual discovery, he passed with the Express representative into a small room in which the subject of the experiments awaited them.

The subject was a well-made woman of medium height, and apparently iu the best of health. Dr Felkin first of all told her exactly the nature of the experiments he was about to make. Then having instructed the Express representative to look steadily at the daylight through one of the spectauranine screens, and set the patient standing upright, vvith legs together aud bauds on hips, about a foot away from the dead, dark background, facing the only window in the room, he proceeded to draw a dark blind half-way down this window, then from below he drew up a blind of dark serge until it overlapped the other blind sufficiently to allow light so dim to filter into the room that only the white form of the subject’s body could be discerned in the gloom. THE HALO VISIBLE. For some moments, perhaps a quarter of a minute, the only object that could be made out in the darkness was the subject’s form aud its outline. Then gradually as the eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, a sort of double mist or halo, the one within the other aud the inner one denser than the outer, became more and more distinctly visible.

The outlines of this mist exactly followed the curves and contour of the subject’s body. The colour ot the outer aura was darker, also apparently, the inner aura was denser. In the triangular space formed by the sides of the body aud the angle ot the arms, as the subject remained with her hands resting lightly on her hips, the Laio could be seen most clearly.

Presently, acting upon Dr Felkin’s instructions, the subject raised aud extended first one arm, then the other. Then she joined her hands at the back of her neck. And always the mist or aura followed, as though it were an outline ot some sort of shadow of the limbs.

Of course, the question will be asked ; Of what practical use is this discovery ? As yet the discovery is in its extreme iulancy, but already it has been found possible with its aid practically to render pain visible. For the aura varies in shade and iu density, iu breadth and iu shape iu accordance vvith the stale of the patient’s health, and any acute and lasting pain, such, tor instance, as sciatica, is actually rendered visible by the length to which the aura of a particular shade and density extends along the limb or limbs, in which the paiu is felt. VARYING AURAS. The doctor declared further that the outline of the aura of, say, a patient suffering from hysteria, to name oniy one complaint, differs wholly from the outline ol the aura of a person afflicted with epilepsy or any other illness of the kind.

“ Auras of quick aud intelligent children, however young and untrained,” Dr Kilner afterwards wrote to the Express representative, “will be more extensive than those of the dull and phlegmatic, though children of the latter sort may have the advantage in physique. The former children will also probably have

auras larger, and the latter auras smaller, than the average. With adults much, the same thing pertains, as the finest auras envelop the most intelligent people, aud small ones surround persons who are dull or of a low intellectual type.” Dr Kilner has a vo'ume entitled, “The Human Atmosphere; or, The Aura made Visible by the Aid of Chemical Screens,” already in the press, iu which book the entire subject is dealt with at considerable length, and particulars are given of experiments that have been made with many hundreds o! patients. That the discovery will create an immense sensation in the medical profession he feels assured.