For millennia, humans have had one obvious and reliable source of lightweight – the Sun – and we have known that the Sun is vital to our survival.
Perhaps this is why historic religions – such as those in Egypt, Greece, Middle East, India, AsiaAND Central AND South America – concerned the cult of the Sun.
Early religions were also common related to healing. Ill people turned to a shaman, priest or priestess for aid.
Although historic people used the Sun for healing, it may not be what you think.
Since then, we have used lightweight for healing in many ways. Some of them you may recognize today, others sound more like magic.
From warming ointments to tanning
Currently, there is little evidence that historic people believed in sunlight myself could cure the disease. Instead, there is more evidence that they used hot Suns to heal.
The Ebers Papyrus is an historic Egyptian medical scroll created around 1500 BC. It contains a recipe for an ointment for “make tendons […] flexible“. The ointment was made from wine, onions, soot, fruit and wood extracts, frankincense and myrrh. After application, the person was “exposed to sunlight.”
Other recipes, for example for cough, involved putting the ingredients into a container and leaving it in the sun. This is probably to hot up the drink and allow it to brew stronger. Same technique occurs in medical writings attributed to the Greek physician Hippocrates, who lived around 450-380 BC
It was written by the physician Aretheus, who worked around 150 AD in what is now Turkey sunlight could heal chronic cases of what he called “lethargy”, but today we would recognize depression:
Torpid people should be placed in the lightweight and exposed to sunlight (because the disease is darkness); and in a rather hot place, as the cause is the solidification of the innate heat.
The classical Islamic scholar Ibn Sina (980-1037 AD) described the health effects of tanning (at a time when we did not know of the link to skin cancer). In Book I Canon of medicine he said the scorching sun helps with everything from flatulence and asthma to hysteria. He also said that the sun “refreshes the brain” and has a beneficial effect on “cleansing the uterus.”
Sometimes it was strenuous to tell science from magic
All hardening methods described so far depend more on the sun’s heat than on its lightweight. What about light-only curing?
The English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) knew that sunlight could be “split” into rainbow spectrum of colors.
This and many other discoveries radically changed ideas about healing over the next 200 years.
But sometimes it was strenuous to tell when fresh ideas came up learning from magic.
For example, the German mystic and visionary Jakob Lorber (1800-1864) believed that sunlight was the best cure for almost everything. His 1851 book “The Healing Power of Sunlight” read: still in print in 1997.
Public health reformer Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) he also believed in the power of sunlight. In his celebrated book Nursing notesshe said about her patients:
second only to the need for fresh air is the need for lightweight […] not only lightweight but also direct sunlight.
Nightingale also believed that sunlight was the natural enemy of bacteria and viruses. It seems at least partially right. Sunlight can kill some, but not all, bacteria and viruses.
Chromotherapy – a treatment method based on colors and light – appeared during this period. Some proponents claim that the origins of using colored lightweight for healing date back to ca ancient Egyptit’s strenuous to find evidence of this now.
Current chromotherapy owes much to the fertile mind of physician Edwin Babbitt (1828-1905) from the United States. Babbitt’s 1878 book Principles of light and color he was based on experiments with colored lightweight and on his own visions and clairvoyant observations. It’s still in print.
Babbitt invented a portable stained glass window called Chromolumaimed at restoring the balance of the body’s natural colored energy. It is said that sitting under colored lightweight from a window for a certain period of time restores health.
Indian entrepreneur Dinshah Ghadiali (1873-1966) read about it, moved to the United States and invented his own instrument, the so-called Spectro-Chromein 1920.
The theory behind Spectro-Chrome was that the human body was composed of four elements – oxygen (blue), hydrogen (red), nitrogen (green), and carbon (yellow). When were these colors? imbalanceit caused the disease.
A few hour-long sessions with Spectro-Chrome would be enough restore balance and health. For example, by using green lightweight, you can supposedly aid your pituitary gland, while yellow lightweight helps with digestion.
By 1946, Ghadiali had created about a million dollars from sales of this device in the USA.
And today?
While some of these treatments sound strange, we already know that certain colored lights treat certain diseases and disorders.
Blue light phototherapy it is used to treat jaundiced newborns in hospital. People suffering from seasonal affective disorder (sometimes called winter depression) can be treated by regularly exposing themselves to this medicine white or blue light. And ultraviolet lightweight is used to treat skin diseases, such as psoriasis.
Nowadays, lightweight therapy is even used in the cosmetics industry. LED masks with star inscriptions, promise to fight acne and reduce the signs of aging.
However, as with all forms of lightweight, exposure to it comes with both risks and benefits. In the case of these LED face masks, they may disturb your sleep.
This is the final article in our Lithe and Health series, in which we look at how lightweight affects our physical and mental health in sometimes surprising ways. Read other articles in this series.