MORE LIGHT.* Dn. Sairr.mr is an enthusiast who knows how
to impart his enthusiasm to others.. He is not a child crying for the moon but a scientist crying for the sun, who can produce very good reasons indeed why his request should be granted. In spite of the Catechism the majority of us here in England are not Children of Light but very much the Children of Darkness, not because the sun, the giver of light, has a particular grudge against our islands, but because we deliberately interpose between it and ourselves a thick curtain of coal-smoke. As I write this article I am seated in front of a comfortable English fireplace, which is belching up the chimney a thick column of coal-smoke. Cast your smoke upon the Heavens and it will return to you in fogs. In addition to our own, a million chimneys in London alone are polluting the atmosphere : with what result ?—that London (and for London read any large British city) is not fit for heroes (nor anyone else) to live in, that the Tuberculosis Dispensaries are working overtime, and that rickety babies are clinical commonplaces. In summer, when most of our domestic chimneys are hibernating, and only our kitchen and factory chimneys are carrying on, the sun will struggle through our atmosphere ; then will the housekeeper, unless forcefully restrained, put up the sun- blinds in order to spare the rugs and curtains. The only good things which we receive from our sooted atmosphere are our incomparable London sunsets ; and even they, as Oscar Wilde says somewhere, are very inferior Turners.
What is the solution ?—legislation which shall put an end to the burning of soft coal. Essen and Pittsburg (the Sheffields of Germany and the United States) have done it, New York has done it ; so why should not we ? For domestic purposes, we can cook by gas, heat our smaller rooms by gas, our large rooms by anthracite and our hot water supply by coke. For industrial purposes coke, gas and anthracite can do all that soft coal can do, and do it more economically ; incidentally we should, by extracting the gas and burning the coke, be dealing gently with our dwindling coal resources. But why all this fuss about sunlight ?—because sunlight is as essential to our physical (and psychical) well-being as good food, pure water and exercise. As the flowers, without sunlight we droop and hang our heads.
Much has-been written recently about Deficiency Diseases, which are caused by an absence from the diet of certain necessary substances. Although there is probably no patho- logical condition which results from one single factor, yet we are entitled to describe a group of Light-Deficiency Diseases. CliiiPf among these Dr. Saleeby places Tuberculosis and Rickets ; to these we would add the pathological condition known as " the dumps." Dr. Saleeby does not lay stress on the psychical results of light deprivation ; but we are convinced that they are very far-reaching. It would be interesting, for example, to compare the statistics dealing with suicide in sunny countries with those in gloomy ones. With regard to Tuberculosis, Dr. Rollier, that modern archpriest of Apollo. has demonstrated that sunlight, when properly applied, can cure that dise5me ; and the investigators in Vienna have shown that in the presence of ample sunlight babies on a vitamin-deficient diet will not develop rickets, whereas cellar- grown babies will infallibly become rickety if the vitamin content of the diet fall below the optimum. But the eye of Apollo can kill as well as heal ; it is, therefore, essential that all medical practitioners who desire to add Lux Solis to their • Sunlight and Health. By 0. W. B&W:by, 1LD.. Cam., FAX.. Ir.R.S.X. London : Nisbet VW sad
pharmacopoeia should acquaint themselves with Dr. Hollier'S book, La Cure de Soleil, now translated into English under the title of Heliotherapy.
Dr. Saleeby in his zeal plunges rather heavily here and there, but he makes up for it in the end by confessing in his last chapter that on the theoretical side we really know next to nothing about the action of sunlight. In the meantime, whilst scientists are directing research into tlutt quarter, we are entreated to apply sunlight empirically more and more, and yet more. Dr. Saleeby might like to know that Röntgen rays are used in the treatment of Ringworm, not for killing the fungus (which in therapeutic doses they are incapable of doing), but for causing the diseased hair to be shed, thereby allowing antiseptics to reach the more deeply situated para- site. Also it might interest him to note that John of Gaddesden in the thirteenth century anticipated Dr. Finsen in the use of red rays for smallpox. We hope that the light which radiates from Dr. Saleeby's little book will shine far and wide throughout the land, and bring in its wake our
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