﻿BOV IE— SCHUMANN RAYS 



surprising in view of what we know of biochemical reactions, all of 

 which take place in aqueous media. 



Dreyer and Hanssen (14) showed that albumins and globulins 

 were coagulated when exposed to ultra-violet light, and the writer 

 (8), by an investigation of the temperature coefficient of the reac- 

 tion, showed that light coagulation, like heat coagulation, involves 

 two reactions: (1) a chemical change in the albumin and (2) the 

 precipitation of the albumin. He showed that the first reaction has 

 a very low and the second a high temperature coefficient. 



Henri (19) determined the coefficient of absorption of egg white 

 and found that there is a close parallelism between the absorption 

 by the albumin of the various wave lengths and their destructive 

 action. 



A very important phase of the biological effects of light is to be 

 found in connection with the action of the so-called photodynamic 

 substances. The reader is referred to a summary of this subject by 

 Tappeiner (31), as space does not permit a discussion of it here. 



The writer has found no published record of previous investi- 

 gations on the visible effects of the Schumann rays upon proto- 

 plasm. Several investigators, however, have made microscopic 

 studies of the visible changes produced in protoplasm by light of 

 longer wave lengths. For the most part such studies have dealt 

 with the effects produced in the tissues of higher organisms, and 

 secondary physiological changes have not been sharply distin- 

 guished from the immediate effects of the light. Dreyer (12, 13) 

 and Hertel (21, 22) have studied the visible effects of ultra-violet 

 light upon unicellular organisms, but neither of these investigators 

 used light which contained the Schumann rays. 



In the writer's investigations, described later, the visible effects 

 of light containing the Schumann rays have been studied. The 

 source of light was a hydrogen discharge tube similar to the one 

 described by Lyman (25). The tube had two compartments con- 

 nected by the internal capillary D, fig. 1. This capillary had an 

 internal diameter of about 3 mm. In each compartment there was 

 a ring electrode (A) of aluminum. The discharge passing between 

 the electrodes was compressed in the capillary D, thus becoming a 

 source of light. The bottom of the tube was closed by the plate F; 



