HEALTH GIVING GLASS.

Shannon News, 31 December 1926, Page 2

HEALTH GIVING GLASS.

TRANSMITS ULTRA-VIOLET RAYS. Rejuvenating old folk or making sound children' of weaklings by; grafting monkey glands into their necks, still has its hopeful advocates, but has not acquired much more than amused interest among the general piublic. Mo3t old people would like to,become young again, and most young pnes would welcome a discovery that would enable them to defy the approach, of old age and set them permanently on the 30 year mark; but all this is optside the natural order of things, and neither monkey nor goat glands will do any-: thing to change the law of growth, maturity and decay. A new application of electricity, however, will, it is claimed, do muck ,to make life more free of diseases and therefore happier and of longer duration. Civilised humanity, by the progress of science and education in hygiene, has already in the last century increased the average length of life from 46 years to 58 — a very great advance —and we are now confidently told by “The Electrician” that an electric lamp made of a new kind of glass will enable the electric bulb to shed a gentle shower of the ultra-violet rays which are now regarded as the beneficent protectors of life and the deadly enemy of all germs and , growths /inimical to the human race. The new glass, it is said, was invented about two years ago by a Birmingham scientist, Mr. F. E. Laniplough, of King’s Norton, aid has since been used experimentally at the Londoni Zoo, where, it has had a marked influence upon the health of monkeys and reptiles (still the monkeys come in!J. It is now, in use at a number of important hospitals and Dr. Saleeby and other eminent medical inen are advocating its use both’for windows and in lamps. At Smethwick, Staffs, where the new glass is made, it has been, used experimentally for windows in one of the schools, and after nine months of its use the schools’ medical officer reports a considerable improvement in the health, physique, and mental cohdition of the children, who were exposed, to the ultra-violet 'rays. Thus the new (electric lamp is merely to continue at bight the gracious work being done by the new glass windows by day. The invention will probably be followed by! the discovery ■of making clothes that j will surround the wearers with healthgiving ultra-violet fays when out in the open air and sunshine (the sun does shine sometimes, although both in Britain and New . Zealand he seems to be carefully nursing his spots and keeps Retired under a cloud veil). This may provide a valuable hint to New Zealand woollen factories, who may thus be first in the field with ultra-violet-rayed tweeds. The new glass, as applied to electric lamps, will, it is reported, soon be on the market, and if it is as disease-preventing and healthgiving as its discovers and makers claim it to be, the monkey gland fad will soon be forgotten altogether. It is to be hoped that the electric people will ndt secure a monopoly on the new glass and compel us to -use it only through electric lamps, burning night and day; also that the British Boafd of Trade or some other authority will take steps to prevent any old kind of glass being palmed off on the people - as the new ultra-violet rays kind. The discovery seems to offer very great .possibilities, and should be very carefully safeguarded.—'Carterton News.