Colours add zest to life and impact the human mood.
“Don’t you see that Allah sends down from the clouds water, then brings forth with it fruits of different kinds (or colours). And in the mountains there are streaks, white and red, of different colours, and others intensely black. And of people and animals and cattle there are different colorus likewise. Only those of His servants fear Allah who possess knowledge.” Holy Qur’an 35:27-28.
Human beings have used colors even before the dawn of recorded history for colouring their lives. Egypt ranks first in discovering a blue dye made up of indigo plants. Then, it was the turn of Phoenicians who discovered some four thousand years ago the art of acquiring colours through two small species of sea snails called as Murex. Murex snails became a source of purple dye. The colour was named after the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. They traded in faraway lands by manufacturing and sale of clothes dyed in fast purple, which was at first of cream in colour, but when exposed to sunlight turned green; and finally purple. This dye was extremely stable and when the colour matured, it did not fade in sunlight.
The Phoenicians used to crush hundreds of sea snails to colour a single garment, which made them very expensive and most sought after in distant lands. The rich made every effort to own a purple cloth sold by them. Purple thus became a sign of royalty in ancient Rome. Even today robes of monarchs and kings in different parts of the world are partial to the purple colour, which is considered a symbol of pomp and majesty.
Yellow and orange colorus are obtained from saffron, turmeric, henna and other plants. Saffron was the colour of choice for Indians since ancient times. Saffron was made from the dyed stigmas of the purple flowers of the saffron crocus. Fifteen thousand flowers had to be crushed to obtain one kilogram of saffron. Moreover, saffron was used to flavour food and fetched enormous price in Europe in the days of old. King Henry VIII (1491-1547) loved food flavoured in saffron, so much so, that he passed a decree forbidding the weavers from using it as a dye. It continues to be the most expensive spice in the world even today.
The Mexicans dyed their cloth in bright red, which was obtained from an insect called “Dactylopius coccus,” found in Mexico. These insects were killed by dipping them in hot water, dried and crushed to powder. More than 140,000 insects were killed to produce one kilogram of Red Dye.
People all over the world were relying on natural colorus to dye their clothes, until 1856 until Sir William Henry Perkins produced by accident the colour mauve in his laboratory, leading to the production of synthetic dyes in the laboratory. By late 19th century several such dyes – about seven thousand in number – were discovered in their laboratories. He further experimented trying to produce Quinine in the laboratory and in the process discovered a dye by way of luck until he met his end.
Dr. Gerhard Domagk (1895 -1964) from Germany, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine in 1939, was studying the properties of a dye called Prontosil Red, and found that it killed microbes. Before long, doctors in different parts of the world were using Prontosil in the treatment of various diseases. Prontosil became the forerunner of Sulfa Drugs.
Since, then new vibrant colors are being added to the existing palette to the existing range of colors with every passing year making our lives more colourful than ever.
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January 2012 |
