SUNLIGHT AND HEALTH

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1923, Page 1

SUNLIGHT AND HEALTH

That sunlight plays a large part in maintaining the high standard of health of the people of Australia and New Zealand—granted their open air habits—cannot be doubted. The importance of sunlight in checking and' eradicating disease has long been recognised. The current issue of “The Now Era,” the well-known international review of the New Education,

gives a summary report of an interesting lecture on the subject at Letchworth Garden C'itv, by Dr C. AA'. Saleehy, F.R.S.E., F.Z.S., one of the foremost experts on . eugenics. Here is the gist of Dr Saleebv’s address:— AA'e are beginning to learn that sunlight, like air and water and food, is one of the necessities of our lives, and i> specially essential to the young for their growth. This was known in the flays of Hippocrates, but was forgotten in later ages—ages in which superstitions such as “touching” for the King’s Evil were rife. In the middle of the last century Florence Nightingale, who might he called a herald of the dawn, protested in vain against the building of Netloy Hospital in such a way that none of the wards could .get a single ray of sunlight. Then came some very important discoveries—that rickets was a disease of darkness, and could be cured by sunlight, that dried tubercle bacili though remaining virulent for two years in darkness, could be killed in seven minutes by exposure to the direct rays of the suit; that lupus could he cured by the Finsen light or the are lamp. Then came Rollier, who, in 1003, began to treat surgical tuberculosis by sunlight at Leysin, in Swifc zerland. Now he has about 37 clinics, where the most apparently hopeless eases are treated and cured without operation or medicine of any kind, but essentially by sunlight. He begins by exposing a small area of unclothed skin to tho sun for five minutes, gradually increasing the area and the dose until the patient lies almost completely nude in the sun for two or three hours at a time. Over-healing must lie guarded against, and the early morning hours arc therefore the host. It is the light rays, the violent and ultra-violet rays, that are beneficial and curative. These rays are completely cut oil by tlie smoko and fog in the air, which accounts for the uniiealthiness of our large smoky cities, cities which pollute the air for miles round, not only by their large factory chimneys and furnaces, but also by their thousands of small domestic fires. Towns like Sheffield and the Potteries say they cannot do their work without smoke; Essen, in Germany, doing the same work as Sheffield, is quite smokeless. and Pittsburgh, in America; is nearly so. AVe build garden cities and suburbs, certainly an improvement on tile old plan ; it is better to have sixty persons to the acre than 600, but we still produce clouds of smoke from our domsetie fires.

Treatment similar to'that of Leysin at a high altitude, is successfully carried out at different levels in England, at Alton, at Havling Island by the sea, at Carshalton, on the Riviera, and in many other places, showing that the sunlight which can bo obtained anywhere is the curative agent. Both snow and sea reflect a great deal of valuable light; the treatment may be “lielioolpine” or “helio-marine,” as long as it is “hello.” AYe learn by all tliis that we can disinfect our clothes and our houses by sunlight, and use it Lo prevent and cure disease. Sunlight acts by increasing the resistance of the body to the encroachments of disease, and delicate children can he strengthened and made

disease-proof by .sun-treatment. Rollier has a school in the sun for such children. AYhen the sun fails, as it so often floes in England, ultra-violet light, or the carbon-are light, can he used for treatment, as is done at Alton during the winter. One lantern slide would show a child, aparently at deaths door, with many tuberculous sores and swellings, ■with stick-like limbs and a weary, hopeless expression. The next would show the same child two years later, standing on skis on tho snow in brilliant snn■shine. with rounded, well-shaped limbs, free from disease, and foil of vitality ».nd happiness.