Chromaray

The Chromaray (or Chromaray-Focoray) is a standing 100 watt lamp that focuses light through coloured lenses for the stated purpose of chromotherapeutic treatment, being the invention of E. Ruscheweyh and Edward A. Ernest, who formerly manufactured and sold the device through the Ernest Distributing Co. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ernest's advertising copy described the device as a "Portable Combination Instrument" that produces "CONTROLLED PROJECTED RAYS OF COOL SUNSHINE."

Of interest, Dinshah P. Ghadiali brought a patent suit in 1937 against E. A. Ernest over the Chromaray, claiming infringement of his 1925 patent for a Color-Wave-Projection Apparatus, a device that was sold as the Spectro-Chrome — which Ernest knew very well, having sold Ghadiali's apparatus in the mid-1930s, even filing (and losing) a libel suit against the Milwaukee Journal in 1936 after a report called Ghadiali's device "hocus pocus." Despite this, Ernest seems to have continued on selling his Chromaray until at least the early 1940s.

Selected Literature

• Ruscheweyh, E.; Ernest, E. A. (1937), Chromaray: The Scientific Way to Health with the Seven Colors of the Spectrum, Milwaukee: Ernest Distributing Co.  — alt. cover title: Chromaray Triorays Manual. Color Energy.