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The recent posting of a antique blue light bulb originally sold as a prostate warmer on BoingBoing has prompted us to write about the choice of blue. An excellent write up is to be found in Banvard’s Folly, a book by by Paul Collins (2001, ISBN 0-312-26886-6) which has thirteen chapters devoted to big ideas that failured in one way or another. A wholely satisfying book, we found, but one chapter is particularly relevant to this electrical health gadget.

In 1861, Mr Augustus J Pleasonton made a greenhouse with some clear glass and some blue glass. After ten years, during which time he took a leave of farming to be a Civil War general, Mr. Pleasonton decided that the blue light in his greenhouse was particularly healthy to plants and young animals. He patented his use of blue light in 1871, receiving US Patent #119,242.

Then he published a book extolling the virtues of blue light which created a storm of interest. Contrary evidence was published in the late 1870s which killed the idea for a while, but every few decades it has resurfaced again. Mr John Kellogg had a version (of Kellogg’s Cereal fame) around 1890. Mr Neils Finsen had a turn of the century version. Mr Dinshah P. Ghadali had a mid-1920s variant that designed to separated fools from their money. In 1940 Mr Roland Hunt had a book published entitled The Seven Keys to Colour Healing which extended the powers of the color blue to things besides light, such as colored water.

Even today fringe elements cling to the notion that blue light is particularly healthy, such as The Owner Build Home and Homestead by Mr Ken Kern at Mother Earth News and Hemp Husbandry by Mr Robert A. Nelson at Rex Research. Both of those go so far as to cite Mr Pleasonton, to give the notion historical credence.