The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 30, 1916. INFANTILE PARALYSIS AND THE SUN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1529, 30 March 1916, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 30, 1916. INFANTILE PARALYSIS AND THE SUN.

The public are eagerly awaiting the results of scientific research which is to correctly establish the cause ot infantile paralysis. At present the cause of this dread disease is still a mystery awaiting solution. The paralysing effect upon its victims is quickly apparent, and the symptoms do not keep the medical man long in doubt. .Beyond this, except for the usual treatment followed for alleviating complications, the dread disease holds the mastery. The press throughout the Dominion have published columns of views—speculations and theories of medical and laymen as to the cause of infantile paralysis, but nothing has so far been discovered to throw light on the subject. Has the sun’s rays any bearing on the subject ? Here is what the Director of the Wanganui Observatory, Mr J. T. Ward, has to say in this connection to a Herald interviewer •

* # * “ There is,” said Mr Ward, “ a good deal ol information available as to the variation in the sun’s heat, or intensity of solar radiation, from day to day, and even trom hour to hour, under similar conditions, and these results have been confirmed by observations taken from high-level stations (r 5,000 feet high), and over desert surface's in Algeria, and Southern California simultaneously.

* * * “ Efforts have been made by astronomers, for nearly a century, to determine the exact amount of heat received on the earth’s surface, after due allowance has been made for absorption in our atmosphere. Many instruments have been devised for this purpose, but it is only within recent years that a very sensitive instrument has been brought to anything near perfection,” said Mr Ward. ”If we take the ordinary trade thermometer, it may give us readings accurate to within about onetenth of a degree. A finely made one may be ten times better, or accurate to within one hundredth of a degree. But there is an instrument in use by astronomers that is considered to be one million times more sensitive than the best thermometer, and this is the Spectro-Bolometer, which is considered capable of recording the one-hundred millionth of a degree of heat or cold. Not only that, but it will take the light or heat as it comes from the sun, and, sifting it out one part from the other, give us a record of its different constituents. For we must always bear in mind that the light which reaches us from the sun, or any of the stars, is a combination in which more of something may be present to-day than was there yesterday, or even an hour back. As to actual intensity, under similar conditions of cloudless sky and time of day, etc., it has been found that a variation of ten degrees is not uncommon in the solar radiation.

“It is to this power to find out the distribution of solar energy, or the relative .energy in the different parts of its spectrum, that we must look for the solution to such a question as that put forward in the present instance,” continued Mr Ward. “ The main thing to bear in mind is the composite character of light. In the rainbow tinted band, which we see in the tele-spectroscope when it is turned on the sun, we have waves of energy of varying intensities, more of one being present at one time than another. There is the well-known fact that the light from one portion of this band is very rich in the power to disturb the particles in the film of the photographic plate. Lenses are made so that they bring the correct, or actinic, portion to the plate.

“Ip we go further afield there is the effect of the ultra-violet rays, the raido-actlve light, on the skin. In one case, reported a few years ago, a scientist who had worked in certain of these rays without properly protecting his arms, found ultimately the whole of those limbs covered by a species of wart, right up to his elbows. The medical men could do nothing for him, and as the growth was spreading towards his body it was proposed to amputate both limbs as the only way of saving his life.

‘We have to bear in mind that, the human body is a highly organised chemical laboratory, into which raw material is entering and being made up into substances of great complexity, substances which may easily be disturbed in their distributive effects by too much or too little of a certain kind of sunlight, or sunheat. There are, for instance, the coloured pigments so important to our welfare ; the red colouring matter of the blood, or the green chlorophyll of the plant, without which either must soon dwindle and die, for they absorb the light energy of the sun, and the future chemical changes in both would stop without the solar constituent. Another point we may bear in mind is that certain light and heat rays, and those only, favour the production of minute organisms, that attack other life in various other ways. If an abnormal quantity of these rays enter into the daily supply of sunlight, large quantities of the offensive bacteria are produced, and the mischief is ‘in the air.’

“Interesting experiments,’’ Mr Ward went on to say, “have been made in erecting sets of variously coloured glass shades over plants and vegetables. The idea was to subject certain plants to the influence of sunlight ot a particular quality, giving one the benefit of the blue, another the yellow, another the red, and so on. Interesting changes were found to follow, and those changes implied important variation in the chemistry of the . plants. It is well known that our people in India wear yellow, because this colour stops the entry to the body of certain qualities of the sunlight injurious to the body of a European. Again, there are certain diseases —measles and small pox, etc. —which have been found to yield more readily when the influence of red light has been brought to bear upon them. The light waves of the order admitted being apparently unfavourable to the bacteria of those and kindred diseases.

“Another suggestion in regard to the power of light is furnished by the three rays of the radioactive matter. If these are taken in the order of their intensity and we call them in that order, the Alpha, Beta and Gamma rays, or radiations, then it is found that they are distinguished chiefly by a remarkable difference in the power to penetrate opaque substances, Now, when a sheet of aluminium only one five hundredths of an inch in thickness is placed before the Alpha rays they are immediately stopped. But it will require a plate at least one-fifth ot an inch in thickness to stop the Beta rays, and one no less than about twenty inches thick to stop the Gamma rays. Therefore their penetrating powers are as i: 100 : 10,000. It is considered that the Alpha and Beta rays consist ot minute particles, the size and energy content of which can be measured, while the Gamma rays are waves, or disturbances In the ether, propagated outwards from the radio-active substance with the velocity of light, which moves 187,000 miles a second.

“Now a point of some interest is found in the Beta ray being identified with the passage of electricity. It has been termed the electron, or electricity-bearer, and the theory has been put forward by Mr Maunder, of Greenwich Observatory, that when the sun, during the active period, brings a large spot in line with its centre and the earth, a stream of energised, or radio-active particles reach the earth, and immediately the magnetic and electrical forces’of the earth are stirred into abnormal activity. Magnets twitch and swing their needles in a most unaccountable manner, while electrical wires and cables refuse to take any terrestial messages, being already full of celestial ones. It is on record that a sudden outburst of energy in a sunspot, observed by two well-known observers in Kngland, was almost immediately followed by the above phenomena, and in addition brilliant aurorae at each ot the poles, on the same evening

“At this stage you will naturally inquire, how is the sun behaving just now ? Well, for the last few weeks he has been unusually active. Many large spots, and great ‘streams,’ as are termed those long areas of disturbed solar territory which are generally arranged in the direction of the sun’s rotation. Very large fields of the brilliant markings known as faculae have been present. On the xoth of February there were seven centres of eruption on the visible hemisphere of the sun, and on the 4th to the 9th of this month no less than five, two being of great dimensions. On the morning of the 10th Mr Allison and I observed a very unusual phenomenon, in the shape of a line of brilliant material, crossing a great spot area. It was about twice the usual brilliancy of the photosphere. On the 13th, when this portion of the sun was just on the edge, turning away from us, a prominence of unusual brilliancy, and about 90,000 miles in height, was observed over the region mentioned. A record of great activity is thus shown to be present at this time.

“This intimate connection and sympathetic responsiveness between the sun and the earth being established,” said Mr Ward, “the most important point, requiring the clearest evidence, is that of the variation in the chemical nature ot the sun's light. Efforts have been made to connect the condition of the sun, when much ‘spotted,’ with plentiful harvests, and a few noted astronomers have contended that cheap food and many sunspots are almost inseparable companions. If the sun were directly responsible for the paralysis we should logically expect it to be prevalent all over the Southern Hemisphere, where the sun, during the last month or two, has been most potent, and particularly at the bathing centres of all countries in this hemisphere. For it is at those places that children especially, and many adults, go with very little covering against the effect of sunlight. Then, again, the effect on the bodies of

children would be much greater, one would expect,, in a given time, than upon adults. How easily may a person get affected even by exposing the upper part of the feet when paddling on the beach at midsummer! 1 recall many cases of the kind when the feet became greatly enlarged, and remained so lor about a Week, and high fever prevailed for the first or second day following.

“Taking these points into account,” said Mr Ward in conclusion, “he would be a bold man who would say that the sun is not accountable for the mischief, for as it has already been shown, the sun may get to work more directly on the chemistry of the body, as the biochemist of to-day knows, or it may in a slightly more indirect way bring it about through those micro organisms of which Nature makes such lavish use to accomplish her ends.”