Arizona republican., 1903-05-31
COLORS ONE SHOULD AVOID

If purple walls and red tinted win dow surrounded you for a month. with no color but purple around you, by the end of that time you would be a mad
 man. No matter how strong your brain might be, it would not stand the strain, and it is doubtful if you would ever recover your reason. For purple is the most dangerous color there is-in it's effects on the brain, which it reaches by way of the nerves of the eye. 1 splash or two of any other color | in the room would save your reason for some time longer, but dead purple would kill you eventually as surely as would foul air. Scarlet is as bad, but scarlet has different effect. It pro- duces what is called homicidal mania madness that drives its victims to kill his fellows, especially his nearest relatives. Even on animals scarlet has this effect. It will drive q bull or a tiger to charge a naked spear. But purple. on the contrary. brings on melancholy or suicidal mania. Blue, as long as there is no trace of red in it. stimulates the brain and helps it, but it's effects on your nerves. if you are saturated with it and can not get away from it. is terrible. Sci entists class blue as a kind of drug in it's effect on the brain.
 It eXcites the imagination and gives craving for music and stagecraft, but it has reaction that wrecks the nerves. Ii you doubt it. stare hard for a few minutes at a large sheet of bright blue paper or cloth--not flowers for there is a great deal of green in their blue-and you will find that it will make your eyes ache and give you restless, uneasy feeling.
 Green, on the other hand, is the king of colors and no amount of 1t can do any harm. On the contrary. it soothes the whole system and preserves the eyesight. If you were shut up in an artificial green light fer a month 1t would develop your eyesight immense ly, but it would be fatal, because when you returned to the world you would be utterly unable to stand ordinary lights and colors. and you would ccr- tairly contract opthalmia or possibly destroy the optic nerve altogeth .r, un- less you were very mindful to take care.
 Most people imagine the sky. in clear V eather. to be blue. It is really white, tinged with green. It is only the dis tance and clearness which make 1t seem blue.
 Green is so soothing that it makes a big difference in the length of an ill., ness, helping the system to fight the disease, and nearly all hospital wards have every possible detail about them colored green. Sage green is the most soothing tint of all; metallic green. however, is by no means SO good.
 Solitary confinement in a yellow cell for six weeks will hooelessly weaken any system, and produce chronic hys- teria. A long enough course of it will produce foolish lunacy, and even on a guinea pig or a rabbit will drive the animal at last to either bite and wound itself, or reduce it to such a state of nervousness that 1t will die of sheer fright if suddenly startled
 On the other hand. if you are not smothered with it. yellow is the health fest. cheeriest color there is. and wlI! make a dark room bright and habit able. when even green would be cold and depressing. But to be we'll "soused" with yellow. day and night. and to be unable to get away from it. would bring you to nervous mad ness within two months at the out side.
 Sheer dead white, unbroken, will dc 'stroy your eyesight as surely as "cata raCt" would if you are exposed to it for few days-a week at latest. It kills the optic nerves. and the sight goes out like a candle. while the effect on the brain is so maddening that blindness is almost a relief.
 This is why Arctic explorers have to wear colored goggles" or green tinted Ciass. otherwise snow blindness as 1t is called. and which is really white blindness" is almost d certainty. Even in the Polar regions. though, the white is not complete. The sky breaks #. If 1t did not no man could keep his cyesight there without glasses.