Evening star., 1939-02-09
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
Bu Thomas r, Henri.

By Thomas r. Henry.
Finding Of band of electromagnetic
sleep waves in the little explored region
the invisible infra-red wave lengths and
the shortest radio waves is reported In
the Journal of the Soviet Academy Of
Sciences by DR.. S. j. Turlygin of the
State Institute for Functional Diagnos-
tics.
Nervous patients placed within the
field Of these waves, of the order of
centimeter in length, first show an in
crease in nerve sensitivity and then fall
into deep natural sleep which otherwise
might have been impossible without the
use of sedatives, the Russian doctor re-
ports. He makes no attempt to explain
the strange effects but merely outlines
his method Of producing the waves and
gives a series of case reports.
To obtain centimeter wave field is in
itself quite q complicated job involving
the use of "a spark generator consisting
of so vibrators, one centimeter long,
placed on two planes in order that the
energy should radiate along the perpen-
dcular line to the planes, provided the
vibrator currents were in synphase. The
density Of the energy of centimeter waves
was equivalent to six luxes of illumina-
ton intensity and the brightness cor
responded to such dim light as makes
reading difhcult."
Following the first rise in nerve sensi-
tivity, he says, "all the patients felt we'll.
The nerves appeared to become quiet and
all slept much better than had been pos
sible before. Especially good results
were obtained on a chemist, So years old.
He was suffering from angina pectoris
and had been in the hospital for about
two months. All this time he had in
somnia and was given luminal every day
to make him sleep. Nevertheless he slept
badly, heard people conversing and was
conscious of his surroundings.
When the first treatment with cent?
meter waves had been given for about
10 minutes the patient fell asleep for
about an hour and half. That evening
he fell asleep naturally again, but slept
badly until 3 am. After dinner the
next day he fell asleep spontaneously
and slept good sound sleep that after
noon. In the evening the sensitiveness
of his nervous system was examined
again. During this examination he
showed uneasiness and asked not to be
left alone. Then he was given second
treatment with centimeter waves for
minutes. That night he slept very we'll
for ~ hours.
The next evening, while being exam
ined for the sensitiveness Of his nervous
system, he felt badly and was gasping
for breath but refused to give up the
waves treatment. He had an extremely
severe attack Of angina pectoris after
the minutes treatment, but in spite
of 1t fell asleep and slept soundly for
hours. Further treatment was stopped
because of this attack.
1T is noteworthy that persons sub
jected to the experiments always feel
drowsy. Thus, we believe, the soothing
and sleeping effect of the centimeter
waves is a real fact. The dose and other
effects, however, should be carefully
studied before further use is made of
the method"
In another series of experiments DR..
Turlygin tested the effects of centimeter
waves on the termination Of aster seeds
exposed to very low intensities. He
found that the growth Of the plants
coming from these seeds was accelerated
from 20 to IS per cent as compared with
the controls, springing from seeds Of
l@& {.l. =, %od
The experiments were so controlled, he
points out, that there was no possibility
Of heat effect on the seeds. A fairly
broad band of wave lengths was used in
both experiments so, DR.. Turlygin points
out, it is impossible to say whether the
sleep waves and the growth promoting
waves are the same.
theoretically both effects are hard to
explain. The sleep effect might be due
to some speciicity of the centimeter
waves for the sleep control center Of the
brain, supposedly located somewhere in
the third ventricle.
In the same journal are reported q
series of experiments intended to dem
onstrate that the sensitivity Of human
vision fluctuates with taste, smell and
temperature impulses entering the CEN
tral nervous system. The series con-
sisted, according to the report of DR..
K. c. Kekceev, of more than 500 three
hour tests of visual acuity on human
subjects. This was found to rise slightly
when water between 10 and % degrees
centigrade was applied to the skin of
the hand. There was no effect when
the temperature of the water was raised
between IS and 40 degrees, and there
was considerable decrease at tenn
perature of over As.
Taste stimuli were applied by placing
on the tongue various dilutions of citric
acid, sodium chloride and wormwood.
With small concentrations there was an