AGE 8. THE TOWNSMAN, Friday, October 21, 1977 Kirlian colors your life LONDON, Ont. (CP) — Dave Dunn brings magic to his work. Director of medical photography at Victoria Hospital, he has a pet project under his wing that may have a solid medical theme—but so far only mystics and parapsychologists have dared to explain it. Dunn is Canada’s only researcher in Kirlian photography. (about 25 persons in North America are active Kirlians), a process that produces a mysterious ‘‘glow of life’ one a piece of film. ; In 1939, a Russian scientist, Semyon Kirlian, ran current through an object placed ona piece of unexposed film and a glowing image of the object appeared. The Soviet Union revealed the ess to the West in 1970, and since then levers in the supernatural have said it reveals the “‘life force” of the object. Dunn, president of the Professiona Phtographers of Ontario, has taken Kirlian color photographs of more than 500 patients and volunteers at the hospital in the last 24% years. He plans to take thousands more. CAN'T EXPLAIN IT He said he can’t explain what the glowing aura is but be has friends who think they can. He hoped to see whether there are connections between pattems and colors ina Kirlian picture and the physical, emotional and intellectual condition of a person, If those links ean be found, said Dunn, it may some day be possible to use Kirlian photo- gtaphs for medical diagnosis. Hospital doctors and administrators, however, remain skeptical. The Kirlian camera is a wooden box about eight inches long and 14 inches wide, It contains a voltage transformer that decreases 110-volt house current to three volts. A coil increases the charge to about 25,000 volts at low am- perage. , Inside is a slim wire carrying current to a steel plate twice the size of a cigarette package. - A plate of quarter-inch-thick glass covers the steel; current cannot pass through the non- conductive glass. To photograph someone's finger, Dunn has the subject hold the finger on a piece of unex- posed film which has been placed over the glass. The current is turned on for about 20 seconds and the color pattern or “aura’’ leaves its ‘impression on the film. SEES RELATIONSHIP Dunn said he believes there is a relationship between the electrical energy in the steel plate and some form of energy in the body being photographed. The aura on the film is a clue . that the enerey is there, yet science cannot explain how the image is formed. record of 500 subjects isn’t enough to draw precise conclusions, said Dunn. Several years and thousands of samples from now, he may be able to make some. But he has noticed some things. A pattern of orange, red and yellow flaring through the aura appears to be related to emo- tional stress, That connection dawned on him as he looked for a common trait among people with aura flares. oo He tested members of the “hospital ad- ministration and told some they were under stress after looking at their Kirlian photos—and each admitted to be under pressure of some kind. DIAGNOSED INJURY . About a year and a half ago, Dunn tested a oung lab technician. The man’s aura was un- ike anything he had seen—a fountain of orange and yellow spurted from the tip of the finger’s image while the sides were almost blank. The technician had sliced the finger deeply in an accident a few days before the test, severing the main nerve tract. Recently, a young woman was tested and Dunn saw the same spurt of orange and yellow at the top of thefinger. The sides were dark. He asked if she had ever damaged her finger badly. Yes, she recalled, she had gashed it and severed the nerve—eight years ago. Dunn's study goes beyond sliced fingers. He once tested a paraplegic, a man paralysed from the waist down, and found his aura was unusual, The aura of a victim of scoliosis, a form of spinal curvature, was also distinctive. Now Dunn wants to try different methods of stimulating blood flow to the extremities to see what differences show up in the aura. He may use caffeine injections or external massage to get the effect, he said. Bull Smiley Ah, women! By BILL SMILEY THERE is something de- lightfully inconsistent about most women which can make strong men moan and gnash their teeth but provides a cer-"' taln amount of inadvertent hilarity to those of us who have given up long ago. After years of blowing every nickel we made, the old battleaxe and [ decided to start saving some money for our old age. Neither of us will make it; 1 because the old corpus will likely cash its ticket before that time, and she because she'll never grow old. But it , Seemed a good idea at the time. { had no idea what it would lead to. But it‘ did. First thing I noticed was that it cut down severely on my extra-curricular activities, “Hey, sweetie, is it OK if I join the poker club this fall? They need me. They play so many old women’s games that they want someone’ to teach them how to play real poker. It would practically be (he same as teaching nigh- school.”’ “Bill, you know perfectly well the answer is no. We can't afford it. We're trying to save money, not throw it away,’ No use reminding her that on the couple of occasions I played with these infants of the game ] came home with 50 Many quartersin my right- hand packet she thought I'd broken a leg as I limped in the door. “"Uh, dear, there's to be an old fighter pilot's reunion in Edmonton this October, Gol- ly, it would be kinda nice to sneak away for a few days and see some of the old...’” “What do. you do at those reunions? Besides tell lies and drink?” “Well there's a whole pro- gram. Speeches. A dances, Wives. are invited. Howja like to go? They're a great - -- bunch. Guys'll be there from all over Canada and the States. Australia. Britain. We didn’t do a thing all sum- mer. Let's get away from it all.” . “From whal all? You mean from me. You know I Saucy B.C. Apple Cake oe aan het A The aroma of this del- icious apple cake baking will fill your kitchen and tempt appetites, 3 eggs | 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla 1-1/2 cups oil 3 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 4 Melntosh apples, peeled and diced 1 cup chopped walnuts Mix first four ingred- ients in a bowl, Set aside. In * another bowl, mix the flour, ‘baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add the apples and walnuts to the dry ingred- ients, Fold the jiquid in- gredients into the dry. Pour batter Into an ungreased bundt pan, Bake at 325°F, for f-1/2 hours. Cool for at least 15 minutes, then remove from pan, CARMEL SAUCE 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup butter. 1/2 cup whipping cream Bring to a boil and serve over the apple cake. Tempting new treats with ‘B.C.’ Apples—in a 16- page, new Recipe Bock. For your copy, send 25c to: . B.C. Book, . B.C. Tree Fruits Lim-. ited, Kelowna, B.C. VIY 7N6 Apple Recipe | wouldn't be caught dead at 2 fighter pilots’ reunion. A bunch of boozy ‘old men Standing around, half- pickled, waving their hands | in the air, What would it ' cost?” ‘ “Well, there's just the air fare. And the hotel. And the convention fee. And a few adds and sods, For the two of us, it would come to only about $700, And if you were . sure you didn’t want to come, I could make it alone - for $500.”" Stony silence. Not a word, @ gesture of encouragement. She went off, rather tight around the lips, 10 watch TV. I sat and pawed rather wist- fully through the reunion literature. Next day, when. I came home from work, it had all disappeared. There was a small pier of ashes in the fireplace. _ But that's not aP -r say- ing binge has affected. I'm not that selfish. I'm not go- ing to kick up a fuss just because my social life has been wiped out so that I can “have a hamburger and a half, instead of splitting one, when I’m an old dodderer. No, there's a lol more. My wife, in her zeal to save money, has started reading the food ads for the first time in her life. Could any of my readers use 20 pounds of flour? The old lady uses approximately - five pounds a year, for frying | fish and stuff. The other day, because it was half price, she bought a 25-pound bag. It sits in the kitchen, moved from one location to another, like one of the seven dwarfs sleeping off a hang- over, The house is filling up with bargains. She bought 12 cans of peas at 30 per cent off. We never eat canned peas, pre- ferring the frozen ones. We'll never get rid of them unless she makes a massive canned- pea casserole and invites all our friends to dinner. We would,then have no friends. Yesterday she came in gleefully and dumped a whole bags full of razor blades in my lap. Half price! By the time I get half way through them, an. orderly will be shaving me in some Sunset Heaven, 1 go into the bathrooom and literally stumble and fall aver sticks of roll-on deo- dorant which are spilling out of the drawers, There was a special on them, and we have enough to pass a few along to our eventual undertaker. Any day now, I’m expec- ting a truck to drive up to the back door and unload half a ton of potatoes, because they are 10 ‘per cent off when bought in bulk. Open the freezing com- partment in the fridge to get a couple of ice cubes, and you are liable to be brained by an avalanche of frozen hamburg, 10 pounds of it at 45 cents a pound, wrapped in half-pound packages, That’s 40 hamburgers. ] eat about four a year, grudgingly. 1 was thinking of having some brickwork done on my house this year. But bricks are expensive. I think I'll use frozen margarine instead. We got a great buy on it: 37 cents a pound, and we have 82 pounds in the basement, Any readers who are hav- ing trouble saving money in these troublous: times need only drop a line. At Smileys’, The Price Is Right. © The Argyle Syndicate Lid.