The influence of light on the skin / by Robert L. Bowles.

  • Bowles, Robert L. (Robert Leamon), 1834-1913.
Date:
[1897?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of light on the skin / by Robert L. Bowles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    invisible in the ordinary way; for instance, vibrations of the infra-red rays have been shown by photography to extend fourteen times the length of the visible spectrum, and the ultra-violet rays nine times its length; how much further who can tell ? In like manner electrical radiations, Roentgen rays, and other forms of energy, are also invisible, but yet we know their power. On the skin the various actions of light begin by irritation ; implying disturbance, change; a transformation of energy; physio- logical or pathological according to the nature and intensity of the irritant: corrosive, vesicant, or rubefacient only. In medicine, irritants may be inorganic and chemical in their action ; as for example the hot iron, strong acids, caustic alkalies ; or organic, as in acrid vegetable and animal substances, mustard, cayenne, turpentine, cantharides; but organic or inorganic, they only can act through those forms of energy formerly known as the “ Imponderable forces of Nature.” Without these forces can no change take place. As I have for many years been engaged, whenever opportunity offered, in investigating the effects of sunlight on the human body, and especially the penetrating effects of reflected rays from snow and other surfaces, I was naturally led to inquire whether there could be any relation between what I had observed and the observations of Professor Roentgen. He finds that certain rays generated or excited by electrical action penetrate most of the human tissues and other substances, and are stopped by substances of a different nature. I have, on the other hand, demonstrated that reflected luminous or photo-chemical rays also penetrate the human skin into the deeper tissues beneath, and produce within them great and important changes.* It will, I think, be interesting to compare a summary of facts and conclusions of various phenomena observed by me from time to time with those published in our Medical Journals on the x rays of Roentgen. 1. That heat qua heat is not the cause of sunburn. 2. That there is strong evidence for believing that sunburn is caused by the * “ Sunburn on the Alps,” Alpine Journal, November, 1888 ; “ Sunburn on the Alps,” Edward Stanford, Cockspur Street, S.W., 1890; “On the Influence of Solar Rays on the Skin,” British Journal of Dermatology, No. 58, vol. v ; see also British Medical Journal, September 29th, 1894, p. 694.