(Roughly) Daily

Originally published in 1876, this book is remarkable not only for being the first major work in contemporary chromotherapy, but also for its unique appearance. True to the ideas held within — that blue light is bearer of unique and special properties — the book is entirely printed with blue ink on blue paper. Its author, a retired US Civil War general named Augustus James Pleasonton, proposed that isolating blue wavelengths from the sun could benefit the growth of both flora and fauna, and also help to eradicate disease in humans. The science was shaky at best…

More about Pleasonton’s passion– and the craze that it provoked– at Public Domain Review.  The full text is here.

While Pleasonton’s particulars were off, he did spur the formation and growth of the field of chromotherapy– in which blue light has, in fact, emerged as relevant (and here).

* Big Bird, in Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. Written by Randy Sharp.

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As we step away from the monitor, we might recall that it was on this date in 1772 that the soon-to-be state of New Jersey passed the first law in the US to license medical practitioners, except those who do not charge for their services, or whose activity is bleeding patients or pulling teeth.  There is to this day no federal medical licensing law.

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