Historical Aspects of Ultraviolet Action Spectroscopy*

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Abstract
One of the fundamental methods for analysis of an organism's responses to UV radiation is the construction of the wavelength dependence for a given bioeffect, termed an action spectrum. At minimum, this demonstrates the organism's response to different spectral regions; in some cases, it points to the target chromophore for the effect. The historical importance of certain action spectra and the development of refined techniques for their construction is the subject of this review. Wherever possible, I have kept to the original spellings, terms and identification of wavelengths. This includes using angstroms and nanometers (but not millimicrons) as the authors did. I preferred to reference papers with the most complete set of data rather than the earliest reports.