The Kingpin of Fakers
In an archive box at the National Library of Medicine in Washington D.C., crammed between a crushed can of ozonated olive oil (invented and marketed by Nikola Tesla) and folders on dubious vitamin supplements, are three files of evidence relating to the Food and Drug Administration’s investigation into a device called the Spectro-Chrome. An FDA agent who dismantled this curious machine, which looks like a simple aluminum slide projector mounted on a stand, described it as follows: “Examination showed that the device consisted essentially of a cabinet equipped with a 1000 watt floodlight bulb and electric fan, a container of water for cooling purposes, two glass condenser lenses for concentrating the light, and a number of glass slides of different colors.”
Colonel Dinshah P. Ghadiali, who invented the Spectro-Chrome in 1920, claimed to be able to cure almost everything with its twelve colors; after intensive treatment with “attuned color waves” a badly burnt infant now had satin-white silky skin, a blind girl’s sight had been restored, and a paralyzed woman was able to walk again. “The Spectro-Chrome is not a lamp,” Ghadiali asserted, “it is a system, a new, original and unique science.” By 1946, he had sold nearly 11,000 devices, the most expensive of which cost $750, earning himself over one million dollars. “Many up-to-date homes are already equipped with a Spectro-Chrome just like the Electric Light, Telephone and Radio,” Ghadiali wrote, adding hopefully, “soon there will be a SPECTRO-CHROME IN EVERY HOME.”
Join the “Scientific Order of Spectro-Chrome Metrists” and get your special purple skullcap today.
Image: Colonel Dinshah P. Ghadiali in his New York Police Air Reserves uniform
