7. The Spectrochrome
The Spectrochrome was a machine from the early 1900s that was designed to treat patients using color. Maybe you’re familiar with color therapy and interior designers using color to elicit different moods – but the Spectrochrome took things to an absurd level.Dinshah P. Ghadiali, inventor of the Spectrochome, theorized that the elements that make up the body (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon) have their own specific color like blue, red, green and yellow. The colors were thought to be in balance when someone was healthy, but became unbalanced if unhealthy. Ghadiali thought that a person could be cured and have their element levels restored by exposing someone to the colors that are low or reducing the colors that are too high. As an example, Ghadiali alleged that green light could be a pituitary stimulate and germicide.
The Spectrochrome was essentially a box with a lightbulb that had colored filters, much like ones you can fit over a camera lens. There were five filters that could be administered by themselves, or 12 if paired up. It was sold as the Spectrochrom Therapeutic System.
In 1938, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act was passed and allowed the FDA to start regulating therapeutic devices. By 1945, Ghadiali was charged with introducing misbranded articles into interstate commerce.