The Effects of tropical light on white men / by Major Chas. E. Woodruff.

  • Woodruff, Charles Edward, 1860-1915.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Effects of tropical light on white men / by Major Chas. E. Woodruff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    chemical or physical properties. Generally increased movement means more intense activities and hence as a rule we might say that the substance is first stimulated and later ceases its particular activities, but if the cause is more intense and more continued the substance is destroyed. There is no great mystery about the matter, for identical phenomena are well known in regard to sound. Glass resonators, for instance, can be made which will vibrate to only one note, and will take up the motion of the air waves when that sound is pro- duced. Moreover it is possible to dwell on that particular note, on a violin for instance, until the resonator vibrates so violently as to be bent beyond its limit of cohesion, and shatters into pieces. We can imagine the same conditions in a molecule, and can think of the atoms as taking up vibrations from ether stresses until they vibrate so far as to go be- yond the limit of their chemical cohesion or attrac- tion, and the molecule is shattered. Likewise the shortest waves may shatter the atom from a too great motion of its constituent corpuscles. Instability of Protoplasm The degree of heat necessary for this varies with the chemical composition, the simpler compounds such as iron oxide requiring a high degree, while more complex ones are destroyed by a temperature harm- less to others. Living protoplasm—one of the most complex of substances—is destroyed by a very low degree, far below the infra-red and as a rule far be-