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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



more pure and vivid by the acquired tendency of the eye to see that color. 

 This is successive contrast ; and it is shown that colors which will har- 

 monize or affect the eye agreeably, or be improved by being viewed in 

 succession, are opposites or complements, of each other. Colors nearly al- 

 lied will be injured when thus beheld, and will affect the eye unfavorably. 



We now see the great importance of color, and the absolute necessity 

 of surrounding ourselves with properly arranged combinations of the vari- 

 ous hues of the solar spectrum. 



The effects of the influence of colors upon animals, is a subject well 

 worthy of investigation by the student of natural history and by the 

 medical profession. Walter Smith, the State Director of Art Education 

 in Massachusetts, narrates the following incident : 



" I was once informed of the utter misery inflicted unintentionally upon 

 a man, whose life was as valuable to society as to himself, by the presence, 

 in a sick-room, of a wall-paper which had certain prominent red spots 

 upon it, appearing at intervals in the pattern. He was just past the climax 

 of a typhoid fever, and had just arrived at that stage when the mind, not 

 yet in full possession of the exhausted body, conjures up delusions — an 

 almost inseparable stage in recovery from such a malady ; and so critical 

 a time that any relapse, through excitement or other causes, is almost 

 certain to end fatally. Before the mind was capable of consecutive 

 thought, like that of the child just strong enough to receive impressions 

 only, the patient opened his eyes, to perceive on all sides a fiery red eye 

 gazing on him from the walls of the room. That took the form of a 

 delusion; and his semi-delirious efforts to hide these dreadful eyes from 

 his sight, almost brought on a fatal relapse. Curtains were hung closely 

 round him, though neither the nurses nor doctor were suspicious of the 

 cause of his delusion. His convalescence was then rapid ; he became 

 sufficiently conscious to speak collectedly, the curtains were removed, and 

 then the red balls tortured him in another form. Do what he would, he 

 could not help counting them from floor to ceiling, from one wall to 

 another ; counting the figures mentally, adding and subtracting, without 

 power to control himself, until he was almost in a worse fever than ever • 

 at last he was sensible enough to beg to be taken to a room where there 

 was no paper at all, and then found repose and comfort. The tortures he 

 felt during that time were indescribable ; and his grief was, that he had 

 not strength enough nor clearness of head enough to explain what it was 

 that afflicted him." In the same work he says : " A man could no more live 

 in a room painted a glowing red color, than he could live in fire or stare at 

 the noonday sun." 



