Word: ultraviolet
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Herelle prematurely decided that he had a cure for all bacterial diseases, and phage became a sensation. (The young doctor in Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith was a phage researcher.) More than 50 different phages were found, and some of them were photographed by ultraviolet light in ultra-microscopes, revealing diameters of two to 90-billionths of a metre. They were tried out as cures for cholera, dysentery, blood poisoning, boils and other diseases, but on the whole proved disappointing. Some bacteria seemed to acquire an immunity to their phages. Some phages worked well in test tubes, failed in human bodies...
Another way in which human physiology and psychology may be affected by sunspots is by means of ions. These are 'electrified particles in the air, created mostly by ultraviolet radiation. A German scientist at Frankfort carried out experiments which convinced him that an excess of positively charged ions in the air causes fatigue, dizziness and headache; that an excess of negatively charged ions induces exhilaration. Confirming results were obtained by Professor Constantin Yaglou of the Harvard School of Public Health...
...Earth, the effect of excess radiation received during sunspot maxima is to evaporate more water, bring on heavier rainfall, and thus paradoxically make the average temperature slightly cooler than during sunspot minima. The eleven-year sunspot cycle has been traced in the growth rings of trees. Stronger ultraviolet radiation accompanies sunspot activity and the aurora borealis displays are more numerous and brilliant, probably due to an increased bombardment of electrified particles. Such influences are now generally accepted as proved. It is the problem of sunspot correlation with such human affairs as stockmarket trends that leads out on the limb...
Unlike astrologers and experimenters in telepathy and clairvoyance, Astronomer Stetson traces a possible channel through which his supposed influences may reach their human objects. The ultraviolet radiation increase due to sunspots produces more Vitamin D in the skin. It may also produce more vitamins in plants which men eat. Increased vitamin intake may, through the endocrine glands, affect emotions and moods. Therefore, "since the composite curve of business activity is fundamentally a curve of mass psychology," sunspots may affect business activity...
Numerous means have been utilized for destroying the micro-organisms responsible for such infection, but of these, treatment of the air with ultraviolet light seems at present to be the most promising