SUNLIGHT AS A MEDICAL AGENT

Taihape Daily Times, 10 January 1919, Page 4

SUNLIGHT AS A MEDICAL AGENT

During the recent influenza epidemic the importance of sunlight as a preventive and curative agent was stressed by the medical profession. Sunlight is being successfully employed also in the treatment of "wounded men in many of the military hospitals in France. An American, Dr. Willis Campbell, is said to have used the sun treatment for the past five years with marked success in diseases of the bones and joints, and he is of opinion that it could be usefully applied to the treatment of other disorders, especially ijn military surgery. Dr. Campbell is a professor of orthopaedic surgery in the University of Tenessee, and in the Journal of American Surgery (New York) he describes 127 of his cases. For the modern development of the sun curehe gives credit to Dr. Rollier, of Switzerland, who has three high-level sa|atoria for sun treatment at altitudesvarying from 4000 ft to 5000 ft. The-ulra-violet rays are regarded by him as the curative ones, and dn the high altitude these are most a bun dant. But Dr. Campbell has achieved good results, at ordinary levels. He says, however, that the administration of the solar rays is by no means a simple task, and that the closest scrutiny is necessary at all times, or the treatment will rarely, if ever, be successful.