THE COLOUR CURE FOR MELANCHOLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 134, 27 August 1927, Page 13

THE COLOUR CURE FOR MELANCHOLY

IMPRESSIONS BY HEART-BEAT Experiments as to tlie effect of colour in the treatment of different types of patients have been made by the London Hospital authorities. These experiments are based on results obtained in American hospital clinics. Here it was found that different types of patients required different kinds of colour in their rooms; for instance an old rose-colour for melancholy patients. A cream-coloured wallpaper with high light reflective qualities is preferable for dark corridors. A rather dark tan and a plumcoloured paper is preferable for Xray rooms; bright green was found preferable . for a certain type of patient, while grey is best for ward walls, instead of conventional buff. Darker grey is suitable for the operating rooms, since it was found that the walls should absorb light and not reflect it, as was the case with the conventional white formerly in use. The clinic found that psychological studies of a person’s attitude toward colour were not satisfactory, because it appears that people do not correctly record their impressions. In order to get impressions correctly the only certain way was to take impressions of the heart beats, the heart being an organ over which the patient can exercise no control. It was found that heart beats responded to different colours, and that the emotions were influenced by colours. . It was found that 40 men and four women out of the average crowd of 1,000 are partially blind. It was found, too, that among college students, women preferred red to a much greater extent than men, that men preferred green more than women do, that both prefer blue equally, but neither preferred yellow.