, 1877-01-28
BLUE GLASS,
Or the Special Application Of Natures
Forces to the Treatment Of Dis.
ease.-.Music in Medicine.
Letter from DR.. James l. Tucker on
This Most Interesting Subject.
10 the Editor of The Tribune.


It seems to me that the present is an epoch Of
general awakening In all departments OF secular
and religious thought. We have witnessed
during the past few months an extraordinary
vitality in the religious world. Science, how
ever, has kept pace, and both, like handmaids,
have been and are still operating in unison. The
noly Bible and the biblc Of Naturc-both OF
divine origin-are vying with each other in re-
yealing the wonderful WORKS Of God. One
points out The way Of salvation, the other
makes manifest the glory Of the universe as a
reflex Of the other world, where, we are
led to believe we shall stand upon q
higher antagc-ground, and cur moral and
intellectual horizon be brondened. It seems
to mc to be particularly appropriate to refer to
gclissn has swept over Great Britain mud our
own land, and where thousands for the first
time have got glimpse OF the inner life. There
is q point where the material and the spiritual
touch one another, and ar attempt is made now
adays to fill the chasm by the invention Of mere
pathological tcrms,--such as psychic, odyllic,
etc.,-cu2hemic bridges as it were between the
spiritual and the material, signitying nothing
but u grasping after something which the
mind sonesves %s SSt
intimate unit5 between forces within
and forces without, between the phenomena Of
tic u,icrucosEn-Alan and OF the nlacrocosm-
Nature. It was thisgrasping after that some
thing which the mind conceivcs but which Ian
gunge cannot express that doubtless gave birth
to Dccthoven's sonatas, to the ideal frescoes Of
Raphael, and tile highest imaginative flights Of
Goethe, first among the philosophical poets.
How inadequate the human eye to compass the
mysteries Of the Very Small! The microscope
power Prof e. I. Bowditgh requested his stu
dcnts-the writer was fortunately one Of the
nurnber-to bring their microscopes to the class
to observe the development Of the lJmnnus.
We beheld the parent potoplasal.. We
witnessed its segmentation. There was shot of
one by one the several Organs till tue
little animal was capable Of Independent life,
and became one Of the myriads of Individual
creatures that were destined TO struggle brief
period for existence. What was that quiycring
atom in the midst Of this organizing chaos! We
watched, and the atom became heart, to pre-
rert product Of force operating upon matter in
obedience to q flat Of inconcciyable creative
power. ,..
the Infinitely Great! Night after night our fcl-
low-citizen, Mr. Burnhain, In Ills little amateur
observatory, is discovering another aud another
OF the twin stars, suns single and suns multiple,
Situated at an almost incalculable distance,
and presiding over solar systems TO which
ours is but IN atom in space. Gamma Androme-
star, orangc-rcd in color, but to the eye, aided
br the telescope, sun with two beautiful COM
panons, one e,nera1d-grecn, the other sapphire
blue, completing their revolution in cycle OF
thousands Of years. The color OF these stars is
a reality anl not the effect Of optiCal contrast.
TIC beautiful double star, Pnlcierrinia, is com
posed Of an orange and an emerald star. With
true poetic vision Milton sang:
Other suns perhaps,
With their attendant moons thou wilt tescry
Communicating mule and female light.
VINO knows what c1rect these colors may have
on the animal anti Vegctab!e Iue OIL tne1r re-
spectiye planets!
And now let US come down to our sun,
to the naked eye the most magnificent object in
nature. Byron says:
I had dream which was not all O dream.
The bright sun was extlnguished, and the earth
Did wander darlling in th' eternal space
Rayless and pathlcss.
ssIn three days from the extinction Of the
SUM-" says John F. ". Hcrschel, commenting
upon this passage, " there would in Ill proba-
life on the globe" And this sun is tho source
OF the light which we see and the heat which ne
feel: the generator of force Of which we are
made conscious through the medium OF our
senses; the garment, rs Schiller says, with which
we arc clothed. It is this light which we hope
to be a5lc TO utilize, not as blind and passive
recipients OF its bcnedcen: influences, but, like
Franklin, with the power to compel. What is
light. Is it material particles OF lmpa'patle
tcuuity sent forth from Tue luminous poos,
Vibrations of subtle aud elastic
ctil.r-a form Of motion! What is heat! a
form OF motion also, and the same Is true OF
electricity and magnetism, of the chemical ana
the molecular forces. They are all correlated,
to use an expression first used W Alr. Grove,
and trnnsformable one into tile other, their
energies una1tcrable by their mutual action.
We have referred to the twin stars, suns Ike
our suns, and know they haVe different colors-
not appearing 80 from the elect OF contrast,
nut really So, like topaz and sapphire, like the
orange and the l:la:: Our sun, on the other
hand, is white, which is a combination Of con
siderable number OF tinted rays, the pfinci2a! OF
which are red, orange, yellow, green, lndl@o,
and violet. These rays, like thc alkaloms OF
opium, are capable OF producing ulncrent el1ects
upon animal and vegetable ll1e-some heat,
some light, some chemical action. United they
produce the combined e11ec:s-calorlhc, luml-
nous and actinic- William Herscllel passed
thermometer from the violet to the red extrem-
ity Of the solar spectrum, and found that the
temperature increased very notably from violet
to red. The reverse Is true OF the chemical ef-
feet OF the rays, the chemical effect, as Or.
Wo}1aston and others have demonstrated, being
Mt tic extreme violet end. It must be borne in
mind, however, that these different ELECTS as
well as the different colors arc but the conse-
qucncc Of different lengths OF wave or und'l-
latiou of cthcr-tht longest waves generating
the extreme rcd, the shortest the extreme