SPECIAL ARTICLE: SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE USE OF LIGHT

¹ Department of Botany, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont

Radiation from the sun or from artificial sources is part of the basic environment impinging on all organisms. Its causal role in health and disease of man is seen daily by the clinician. Within the past decades, however, radiation has become important as a clinical and research tool. The generation, control, and measurement of radiation requires some application of photobiological and photophysical principles, not only to satisfy the editor of a periodical, but also to allow other investigators and clinicians to evaluate the results and conclusions, to permit confirmation and extension of reports, and to use radiation effectively in research and in practice. Although this brief resume of some of the perils and pleasures of photobiology is not comprehensive, it may provide a base for studies and reports in which radiation is a parameter.

You will note that the term radiation has been used, rather than the more common term, light. Actually, there are two systems of nomenclature, one dealing with radiation as a physical entity, the other with what is called the photometric or psychophysical system. Light is a people-word, referring to that small segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that stimulates the optic nerve. If a mosquito were the dominant and articulate life form, the word light would be restricted to wavelengths below those perceived by man; the region we call the ultraviolet. Since much of radiation research does not involve the human eye, photometric terminology has little meaning and, as we shall see, may provide information that is very misleading.

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