THE NEWEST AMERICAN CRAZE. THE "BLUE-GLASS CURE."

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5056, 7 June 1877, Page 2

THE NEWEST AMERICAN CRAZE. THE "BLUE-GLASS CURE."

f Written for the Nem Zealand Times.)

There is being developed in the United States a new craze ; and already, as it would seem, thousands of otherwise sane people firmly believe that sun-light which has passed through blue glass exerts wonderful effects alike upon animal and vegetable life. Spiritualism has driven many men and women mad ; its doctrines and its claims are offensive to most of those who are not converts to the " new and beautiful religion" which its disciples pretend it is to be the means of establishing. The blue-glass craze, stupid as it may be, will have no such effects, direct or indirect; and, indeed, despite the fact that all its pretended merits are no more than dreams of people who have no acquaintance with science, it is supposable that belief in those merits may occasionally work beneficially. Some of our Southern contemporaries have published articles devoted to praise of the new " cure," or to unquestioning statements, which, if statements of fact, must be regarded as so many announcements of the miraculous. We propose to condense a series of articles which have appeared in the Scientific American; and which strike us as fairly stating what the blue-glassists claim for their plan, how much there is of truth or possible merit in the thing, and how far the ' cure is, scientifically, a sheer delusion. Nearly six years ago, General A. J. Pleasontou, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, got a patent "for utilizing the natural light of the sun transmitted through clear glass, and the blue or electric solar rays transmitted through blue, purple, or violet-colored glass, or its equivalent, iu the propagation and growth of plants and animals." He stated, in his specification, that he had discovered "special and specific efficacy in the use of this combination of the caloric rays of the sun and the electric blue light, in stimulating the glands of the body, the nervous system generally, and the secretive organs of men and animals." "Vegetation, he stated, is vastly improved by the transmitted blue light. These alleged discoveries were much written about by American newspapers in 1871 ; and last year, General Pleasonton published a book, printed with blue ink, and bound in blue cloth. In this book, there are many statements as to cures and the otherwise-wonder-working powers of the blue-glass. What the General uses is known as "potmetal blue"—that is to say, the glass is stained a bluish violet throughout, and is not clear glass covered with flushings of blue. In his grapery, General Pleasonton uses the blue glass for every eighth row only ; and all the alleged wonders appear to have come from structures in which a considerable proportion of ordinary clear glass is used. These are amongst the results alleged to have been obtained -.—Twenty grape vines, in their second year, after being set out under the blue glass, bore 12001 b. of splendid fruit. A very weak Alderney bull-calf was in four months developed into a strong and vigorous bull. A weak child, weighing but 3ilb. at birth, weighed at the end of four months,~22lb. (blue curtains were used in this case). Two major-generals who suffered from rheumatism were cured in three days. A young lady whose hair had come out, regained her tresses. Many people have been cured of severe ailments. So that —accepting all this as true—the blue-glass cure combines the powers of bullock-blood, Thorley's " food," Blair's gout and rheumatic pills, the very best " food for infants," bear's grease, and Parr's pills. What grounds are there for General Pleasonton's claims, or for his followers' faith ? Scientific men will certainly not admit that there is any " electric blue light." Whether sun-light will magnetise steel, has been many timestriedwithelaboratecare; it is believed that every source of error was removed by Niepce de St. Victor in 1861; but he "found it impossible to make one sewing needle, solarised for a very long time under the rays of light concentrated by a strong lens, attract another suspended by a hair, whether the light was white, or colored by being made to pass through a violet-colored glass." Dr. Morichini's experiments, upon which General Pleasonton depends, are held to be completely disproved by those cited, and others. The absorption of carbonic acid by plants, and its evolution by animals, are prime essentials to the growth and health of each. General Pleasonton alleges that Seunebier's researches show that the blue and violet rays, of all those which make up sunlight, are the most active in determining the decomposition of carbonic acid in plants. Any scientific man speaking of " blue rays," means those obtained when sunlight is split by a prism : they have chemical effect. It must be carefully remembered, however, that such rays are wholly distinct from sunlight tinged with blue by reason of its passing through colored glass ; and it is with the latter that General Pleasonton deals. Von Bezold, Sach, Professor Draper, Dr. Hermann Vogel, Pfeiffer, SeUm, and Placeutirn, have shown that the natural or prism-produced blue rays have not the effect which General Pleasonton puts forward; and several of the scientists named agree clearly iu saying that the yellow (prism) rays are more promotive of the evolution of carbon in animals ■ and its absorption in plants, than any others in the spectrum, the violet rays having least power in these respects, with the exception of the red rays in the case of animals. Baudermont, after experimenting from 1850 to 1861, found violetcolored light absolutely injurious to plants, and his experiments justify the assertion that no human tinkering can devise means of illumination, or any modification of sunlight, which is so well adapted for promoting natural processes as the pure white light which the sun gives.

It is an old theory that colored lights hivo different effects on the human system. This is especially the case with lunatics, according to Dr. Ponza, who says that red light removes feelings of depression, blue induces calmness, and violet has in some cases a curative effect upon the temporarily crazed. Light is an important vital stimulant; healthy development is, speaking generally, arrested in animals and in plants, by a continued deprivation of light. In the humanbeing, constant darkness impoverishes the blood, and causes diseases due to imperfect nutrition. But, in certain conditions, darkness is advantageous. Fowls may be fattened more rapidly in it than in b"ght ; it induces desiro for rest, and increases the fat and muscle-producing power of food in most animals. The fact that Dr. Ponza's patients were in light very much shaded, may, therefore, account for the effects he records, without the peculiar hue of light being brought into question: for he no doubt caused all the light which reached them to pass through red, blue, and violet glass respectively. But General Pleasonton does not do this with bis grape vines, his bull-calves, or his bald-headed ladies. He combines blue and clear glass, the latter much preponderating. Consequently, his patients are exposed to sunlight which is very slightly shaded. They take, in fact, a tepid sunbath. Long ago, the pleasure and the healthfulness of the solarium were apjjrociatcd. Sun-treatment is now frequently recommended by phjsicians for nervous diseases. Dr. Hammond, in one of his lectures, says: "In convalescence from almost all diseases, it acts, unless too intense or longcontinued, as a most healthful stimulant, both to the nervous and physical systems." In effect, then, General Pleasonton's claims of superior power for blue glass on account of the color which it produces, are shown by scientific investigations to be unfounded. Mr. Thomas Garfield, of Boston, who has for many years devoted attention to the actios of sunlight on glass, and to the action of colored glass upon transmitted light, says: " The poorest kinds of colorless glass, and even those kinds which have been changed to a yellowish or purple tinge by exposure of years to sunlight, will transmit a much larger amount of the chemical rays than the most actinic of the really colored glasses, the blue and violet." He adds that in a series of photometrical experitnents made by Professor Stimpsou and.

himself in 1867, they fouud purple or violet glass to cut off about 00 per cent, of the light rays ; and he estimates that the same glass transmits from 20 to 30 per cent, less chemical influence than any colorless glass. To the same effect is Dr. Van tier 'Weyde's statement :—" Violet glass passes a light identical with sunlight, only much reduced in power, containing but a portion of its calorie, chemical, and luminous agency : being simply deprived of its strongest rays." The spectroscope gives the same evidence. "Blue-glass cures," then (if there have been such things), mean only cures wrought through patients being placed in sunlight creatly weakened : the glass has no other virtue than that of acting as a shade for creasing the intensity of the solar rays. That - animals so shaded, and consequently screened **.from the weather, while being well fed and everyway petted into laziness, should rapidly fatten, is not wonderful : that some people with fancied ailments and the firm faith begotten of unreason and obstinacy, can really believe that they are cured, or at least relieved, byilolling in glass structures which are not hot-houses only because of the darkening aud heat-repelling power of strips of blue glass, is easily to be understood. Faith, in such cases, will sometimes really work wonders. One old lady is said to have declared that she was cured of tic-doloreux by sitting for an hour in front of blue-glass, after sundown: her faith must have been great, indeed. A 3 great as that of the heroine of a piece of doggrel once a favorite with reciters. She was told to take some gruel, in which she had put a little lole ammoniac ; but being deaf, she sent her grandson to " beg an Old Moore's Almanack." lie couldn't get one ; but her faith triumphed : And so, I biled "The liabes i' the Wood," And,|praise the Lord ! it done a mort o' good.