El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-12-13
CURES BY ELECTRIC LIGHT.
Details of Wonders Wrought In Lon
don Hospital By Simple Methods

At the London hospital IN WHITE
chapel marvellous cures are being eff
fected by the electric light. 1t is
quite three years since the discovery
was made by Copenhagen doctor
that both sunlight and electric light
can cure certain diseases when all 9TH
er remedies fail. And early in the sum
mer of the present year the princess
of Wales induced the authorities OF the
London hospital to try the cure, says
the London Mail. Her royal highness
presented them with the necessary ap-
paratus, of which the total cost was
$500.
The method is a curious, though
simple one If anyone visits the Lon
don Hospital between and p m, on
any day of the week he will find, in
bright. cheerful room set apart Tor
the purpose, a number of patients sit
ting on rocking chairs in circle
round the room. Hanging from the
ceiling in the center is very power
full electric lamp. And around 1t are
arranged several telescopes, which con-
centrate the light on the patients. Be
side sach patient is nurse who press
es a small glass lens on the spot OF
skin under treatment.
To understand it all we must go back
to the first experiment,
As every one knows, white light
the light of the sun, electric light, etc
consists of a combination OF all the
colors of the rainbow. At one side or
the rainbow are the red and yellow
rays; at the other side the violet and
blue. The red and yellow rays are
carriers of heat; the blue and violet are
called chemical rays. That is to say.
they are almost without heat, but
they cause chemical action.
ir,cf
es hydrogen and chlorine in thin
bulb of glass and then focus the red
rays of light on it nothing happens.
But if you focus the violet rays there is
an immediate explosion. The photo
grapher has reason to understand
this. When a piece of Photographic
paper is exposed to the light it black
ems. But if ruby lamp" is used no
darkening of the paper follows-the
red glass not allowing the violet chem
ical rays to come through
Now. some time ago a doctor put
piece of Photographic paper under the
skin of a dog and focused the violet
rays of sunlight on it, He put another
piece in another dog and kept him in a
dark room. The result was that the
first piece of paper was found blacken-
ed and the second unaffected This
seems a useless sort of experiment. but
it was the first step in the great discov-
cry. 1t proved that the chemical rays
of light can pass through the skin
At the same time attention was dir
ected to the curious fact that noun
tain climbers suffer badly from sun
burn when passing over field of snow,
with the thermometer below zero. To
eIucidate this matter the following ex-
periment was made: Sunlight was
concentrated on the faces of two men.
red glass being interposed in one case
and blue glass in the other. The red
glass allowed all the heat of the sun to
pass through. but kept off the violet
chemical rays. The blue glass let the
chemical rays through but kept out
the warm red light After the expert
ment it was found that the man whose
face was nearly roasted by the red
light came out of the ordeal without a
trace of sunburn, but the man on
whom the cold chemical rays fell was
badly sunburned. Therefore the doc
tor concluded that the chemical rays
were very irritating to the skin
If the chemical rays do this to a
mans skin, he thought. no doubt they
will have a destructive effect on mi |
crobes |
Further experiment showed that |
bright sunshine killed the strongest of |
microbes-the bacillus prodigiosus- |
one hour and half. A powerful cleo |
trio light killed them in nine hours. |
But by excluding the red heat rays
and concentrating the violet chemical |
rays it was found that nearly all mi
crobe5 were killed in few seconds.
Putting all these facts together it |
was now known that the concentrated |
light of the sun or electric arc would |
kill microbes on the skin, i the sub
stance of the skin, and even under the
skin. In all probability therefore.
any skin disease due to microbes could
be cured by light. Now. there is one
such disease, terrible infection which
was the despair of the doctors. That
is lupus, first cousin of consumption.
In the light cure the doctors have
now perfect remedy. 1t is painless
but it has the drawback of being very
slow, often taking months of daily
treatment.
1t is carried out as follows: When
the weather is fine and bright the pa
tients sit in the open air, and light of
the sun is used. Wnen the weather is
dark the electric light is used. Of
course the latter is very expensive
while the sunligh. costs nothing. But
curiously, the electric light is more eff
fective. being very rich in chemical
rays.
The apparatus slightly differs ac-
cording to the light used. When the
is availed of, a large glass lens ,
filled with blue water-sulphate of cop
per dissolved in water-is placed some {
little distance away from the patient.
This concentrates the light, which is I
focused SO as to let a spot about the s
size of sixpenny bit fall on the pa I
tents face. The sunlight thus concen- 7
trated would quickly burn a hole in the {
face of it were not for the blue water. s
But the blue n the water prevents the