276 THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 



some dicta of the General Medical Council warn vis to form no alliances. 

 Hence, unless particular methods of physical treatment have become 

 crystallized into fixed routines, so that they can be prescribed eii bloc, 

 they are made but little use of. At a number of places certain special 

 methods of treatment are adopted which are as easy to order as a pill — 

 and so they are ordered. Nothing is more simple, and professional 

 withal, than to prescribe a course at Nauheim, or Aix-la-Chapelle, or 

 Droitwich. But to superintend the exercises or the baths or the in- 

 unctions, and so to cure one's patient oneself, is quite another thing. 

 First of all it is a good deal of trouble, but above all it is a little outside 

 ordinary professional usage. We cannot but think, however, that 

 English medical men will before long find out the advantage of taking 

 under their own charge the wliole treatment of disease, and not con- 

 tenting themselves with the comparatively small ]iart which is involved 

 in prescribing what should be done. 



Abstracts. 



Cor.oK ()! Window Blinds. The remarkable and widely varying 

 properties of the elementary colors which compose white light suggest, 

 says Prof. Longro, that the employment of screens as in the blinds 

 placed over our windows should be founded on a scientific basis. Our 

 knowledge of the properties of each individual section of the spectrum is 

 not exact, but this nmch we do know, that the rays of least ref rangibility, 

 the red rays, are without direct chemical efl^ects ; they occur at the heat 

 end of the spectrum On the other hand, the rays of the highest re- 

 frangibility contain the violet rays which chemically are exceedingly 

 active. It is these rays which are concerned in photography and also in 

 the great processes of vegetable nutrition and growth. 



The object of blinds is, of course, two-fold — to keep a room cool and 

 to screen out some of the light, so as to avoid the bleaching of coloring 

 materials of the carpets and furniture. At the same time sufficient 

 light nmst l)e admitted, so that the occupant may see without diffi- 

 culty. What, then, is the best ctjlor for the purpose? Since light exerts 

 the peculiar action due to the actinic rays which materially and whole- 

 somely afi'ects the air of a dwelling-room, care should obviously be taken 

 not to exclude all the rays that are so concerned. Thus ruby or orange- 

 red material would be contra-indicated. A])vmdance of light is inimical 

 to the life of micro-organisms, so that a material in some shape of a com- 

 promise should be selected. The best for this purpose is probably a del- 

 icately ochre colored fabric. This would screen part of the active light 



