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Show Fused Quartz As Aid to Health Makes Healing Uhra-Violet Rays Independent of Sun. New York. The perfected method of making fn-o-d quartz ill quantities, lis announced recently by tli - (h-neral Flectrh company, is expected to make man independent f the sun's, rays so far as his ability to obtain ultra-violet ra s are com-erned, according to '.he opinion of scion' ists now engaged ill experimenting with the newly developed de-veloped material. F. It. Ferry, assistant director of the Thomson research laboratory of the (leneral Fleetric company, announced an-nounced that he had enlisted the services serv-ices of l)r. W. T. Fovie, professor of bio-physics at llarsard medical school, liinl I Jr. Clarence ('. Little of the University Uni-versity of Maine and their institutions to further i ii i ; ii i-i .i ii t experiments in the use of fused quartz. The properly which makes fused quartz Mand out above all others is its ability to transmit ultra-violet rays, the healing chemical rays which, emitted emit-ted by the sun, cans:? sunburn. These rays are excluded by ordinary window glass. Now that Mr. Ferry has made it possible to produce fused quartz in quantities, efforts are haing made to learn whether it will be pi act icable to use the material in the extensive manufacture man-ufacture of electric bulbs. Independent of the Sun. "II we cau provide artificial illuini-nants illuini-nants that will emit ultra-violet rays we won't have to depend on the sun, which is so uncertain in winter," said Doctor Fovie. "We can get the sun's effects on cloudy days by using quartz bulbs or tubes with incandescent light." not generally realized. It is perhaps ju-'tle realized, either, that it is prev-! prev-! alent aiia.ng the babies of the well-to-I do who are not allowed to play in the streets. ! "Kememher that playing in the sun. behind window glass, does not expose I the children to these benelicial rays. ; However, quartz window's which do admit these rays are now entirely ; within the bounds of possibility as ' a result of Mr. Ferry's work, j The Havoc of Rickets. I "lint to get back to rickets. Autop-sies Autop-sies on babies in LU'csden showed that of those who were born in the fall and died in the spring, 'Jlj per cent had rickets, of those who were born in the .-iiiing and died in the fall only a very small percentage had rickets. The babies burn in the spring were outdoors in the sunlight during the summer." After remarking that the sun's effects ef-fects could be obtained on cloudy days by the use of quartz bulbs, Doctor Foyle added: "Certain foods act sympathetically to sunlight. It is not inconceivable that we could light our restaurants with sources of ultra-violet light so that while partaking of foods rich in phosphorus and calcium ive could partake of light energy that would enable us to utilize these salts in normal manner. "There are diseases other than rickets rick-ets which are due to faulty metabolism, metabol-ism, Ihe 'machine gun sneeze' is one. Such diseases might be alleviated by feeding enleium lactate and using ultra-violet light in connection with it. ."Altogether, the availability of quartz suggests very interesting possibilities. possi-bilities. With Doctor Little we are undertaking the investigation of the effects of the ultra-violet rays on the thins, Romans and Greeks, but that their chemical nature was not known. Their identification and control are of recent accomplishment. Among others, oth-ers, Finsen in Copenhagen succeeded in curing a skin form of tuberculosis and in showing the beneficial effects in the treatment of smallpox. "In America, however, progress has been retarded and some such event as the, production of this quartz has been needed to redirect attention to. the subject," said Dr. Fovie. "American "Amer-ican doctors, did not understand the scientific side of ultra-violet therapy. Its use developed into a bad form of quackery. Apparatus called ultra-violent lamps which did not emit any of the rays Finsen relied upon were used. The result has been that many reputable physicians of America have refused to have anything to do with it." Essence of Sunlight the Year Round Those conducting experiments with fused quartz point out that if the new quartz merely makes It possible eventually event-ually for the average home to have the essence of sunlight, artificial or natural, the year round, in bad weather weath-er and good, its meaning in health to countless thousands who, "grown under un-der glass" have been deprived of the beneficial qualities of sunlight, heat excepted, is likely to prove measureless. measure-less. It is believed that the action of Doctor Bovie is planning to erect on the grounds of Harvard university univer-sity a greenhouse glassed with quartz In which will be determined certain effects of the rays upon growing plants With a view to applying any knowledge knowl-edge thus gained to improving human health or preventing human diseases. Fxperiments with a similar object are to be made In the University of Maine laboratories, where conditions are considered con-sidered especially favorable. While those who have undertaken the experiments with quartz desire to refrain from raising false hopes as to the possibility of curing or preventing certain stubborn diseases, they feel en- calcium metabolism of milch cows. (The object, of course, is to see if the rays can have any effect on the milk we feed our babies. It is not improbable. im-probable. Other animals feel the effect ef-fect of the lack of these rays. Deep-sea Deep-sea fish do not produce bones, though living in water prodigally saturated with calcium salts. Fish of the same species living in the upper water, where the sun rays strike through, have bones in profusion. Ultra-Violet Rays for Poultry. "Likewise poultrymen in the North are unable to grow chickens for early market satisfactorily. In the darkness dark-ness of long winters the chickens suf- couraged that infant mortality from rickets, particularly in crowded cities, may be further reduced as a result of the work. "We all know that exclusion of light results in the blanching of plants,' said Doctor Fovie. "They may become more succulent for table purposes, but their tissues are not stout and well developed.' This is because calcium and phosphorus salts are not deposited deposit-ed in the absence of the ultra-violet rays in sunlight. "Similarly, if babies are submitted to the same absence of sunlight, or of ultra-violet rays, their bones do not grow, and hence rickets set in. This is a common disease, how common is fer from 'weak legs.' This is nothing noth-ing but rickets and ultra-violet rays cure them. Hughes of the Kansas experiment ex-periment station exposed hens to ultra-violet rays ten minutes a day and doubled their egg production. Further, Fur-ther, the weight of the individual egg was increased 20 per cent. "I am personally convinced that pine trees in our forests, deprived of light, suffer from rickets just as humans do. We shall hang ultra-violet quartz lights about the woods in the course of our experiments and see what the result is." F)octor Bovie pointed out that the employment of ultra-violet rays is not new, that they were used by Egyp- tne uitra-vioiet ray is sumcientiy wen known to make tiiis possibility a prediction pre-diction and that indoor living, or residence res-idence in regions overcast for long periods, pe-riods, need not be so hazardous in the future. If the views of some scientists scien-tists are to be accepted, Mr. Berry will be regarded as the man who made "perpetual sunshine" possible. "There are now opened possibilities of studying the effect of ultra-violet rays on the fundamental instinct of migration and hibernation and upon the inherited characters of animals and plants," according to President Little. "It wilt be possible also to compare the effect of ultra-violet and X-rays on identical material. "Also, the fact that strains of mice at the university's laboratory have long been used for research with cancer can-cer lays open a field of prospective value in the relation between ultraviolet ultra-violet rays and biology and medicine." |