We cannot prevent the occurrence of magnetic storms nor sunspots, nor the passing of electromagnetic waves through the walls of our labora tories and ourselves. However, our studies are instrumental in recording the effects of these factors on the human organism, and especially on the blood; in correctly interpreting the deviations observed in several physiological processes; and in certain instances, in preventing their in jurious influence by prophylactic measures.
As mentioned earlier, the effect on the human organism of the chromo spheric flares is of particular interest. These flares are sudden outbursts of colossal energy on the Sun, that reach and affect the Earth quite visibly. When viewed with a spectrohelioscope, an intense flare is perhaps the most striking spectacle in the entire sky, when part of the solar disk, sometimes exceeding 25 billion kmz, suddenly flares up with a blinding brilliance. The flares occur mostly in the central regions of sunspot groups, seldom away from them. Some sunspots may give rise to 30-40 flares during one crossing of the disk, while others, though of equal area, may generate only one flare if any. According to their properties three classes of flares are distinguished, from 1 (lowest intensities) to 3 (highest intensities). The human organism is affected by flares of the second and third class.
The flares not only radiate light, but also eject large quantities of solar matter, and when such a flare occurs near the edge of the solar disk it resembles an artesian fountain throwing jets of matter to heights exceeding 500,000 km at tremendous velocities.
The flares emit two types of radiation: electromagnetic waves, and corpuscular streams. The waves advance with the velocity of light and affect the Earth simultaneously with the flare (within 8.5minutes of their onset), whereas the solar corpuscles lag behind according to their different velocities resulting in the delayed effect . According to A. I.01', the particles ejected at velocities exceeding 1000km/sec require more than two days to reach the Earth's surface.
The simultaneous effects include magnetic crochets (recorded on magne tograms), fading in short radio waves (familiar to all radio listeners), sudden intensification of atmospherics (radio disturbances), etc. The flare itself is a radio transmitter and its radio waves reach the Earth at the same time as the visible and ultraviolet radiations. The delayed effects include magnetic storms and polar auroras.
The four largest flares that occurred during the 20-year period since the beginning of continuous recording of cosmic rays produced sudden rises in the intensity of cosmic rays, that were especially pronounced in February and August 1956, and clearly reflected in the blood profile.
Our observations were conducted on the regular blood elements. The most sensitive to the effects of chromospheric flares seemed to be the leukocytes, especially the neutrophils whose number suddenly dropped, causing leukopenia and relative lymphocytosis.
With the passage of very large sunspot groups in February 1956, an intense flare was observed, accompanied with intense streams of cosmic rays. It was emphasized by several scientists that the scale of the February flare surpassed ordinary astronomical events. It drew the attention of many specialists, particularly those engaged in the study of cosmic rays.
Let us now examine the reaction of the blood to this tremendous solar flare. From the large amount of available data we selected those obtained by two laboratories situated in very remote regions (Khosta, in the Soviet subtropics, and Talaya, in the Soviet Northeast).
In January 1956, according to the data supplied by Senchishcheva (from a sanatorium at Khosta), the incidence of functional leukopenia (leukocyte counts lower than was 14.5%. In February of the same year, after the flare, it doubled to 28.8%, then decreased to 13.3% in March, in July to 11.7%, and in October to 11.1%.
According to the data supplied by Ostroukhova (sanatorium at Talaya), the incidence of leukopenia was 8.4% in January, increasing to 19.1%, more than double, in February. In March it was 23.2%, 12.7% in July, and 12.6% in October.
The striking correlation of these data merits special attention. Statis tical analysis of the data (calculation of mean errors, and determination of significance) confirmed our conclusions. The difference of the relative values exceeded the mean error of the difference by a factor of 5.24 at Khosta (January—February), and of 3.6 at Talaya (January—February). Approximately the same relationships were also maintained during the following months. The rather slight difference between the percentage variations in Khosta and those in Talaya were explained by the geographical latitude. The nearer to the poles, the more pronounced the effects of cor puscular radiation.