p. 809 | THE SUN BATH by Dr. C. W. Lyman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 29, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 51.

THE SUN BATH.

By Dr. C. W. Lyman

BY DR. C. W. LYMAN.

INSTANCES are continually coming up of persons whose depressed and sickly condition is found to be due to their passing their time in dimly lighted rooms, and who promptly recover when they change to sunny rooms or an outdoor life. I recall one case in which a city merchant had suffered for years from an obstinate eruption on the skin of his face and body, and had consulted many specialists, and taken many sorts of treatment in vain. It finally occurred to one of these specialists (the last one) to inquire what sort of an office the patient worked in. It then appeared that he owned an entire office building, rented out all but a certain dark suite of rooms on the first floor, with windows opening northward into a dim courtyard, and used that himself, as no one else wanted it. When this man was transferred to a sunny south room, his skin affection passed away without other aid. Now when effects like the above are seen to follow the contact of light with the face and hands (the rest of the body being, of course, hidden in clothing) and with the air of a living room, one asks whether the occasional exposure of the

tire body to direct sunlight might not have powerful and in some ways beneficial results?

That such is the case there can be no doubt. The solariums on the roofs of the houses of the ancient Greeks and Romans testify to the benefits obtained by them from sun baths. In recent times we have an institution under Dr. Rikli, at Veldes, Austria, where for forty years past patients have been treated chiefly by systematic sun bathing. In our own country consumptives are being sent to spend the winters near the Yellowstone region, where, in spite of heavy snow underfoot, they are found to do well if constantly out in the strong sunlight, breathing the cold, pure air of that region.

While sunlight may not have so direct a relation to life and growth in animals as in plants, there can be no doubt that it has a very real and extensive connection in the case of animals. We not only need sunny rooms, and hours in the open air and sunlight, but we can also give ourselves a real treat from time to time by sunning the entire body on a protected flat roof, in a bay window screened so as to admit the sunlight above, or in whatever way can be arranged. Ten minutes (for beginners) up to half an hour every day in the sun will be found to act as a tonic of the first order.

However, persons with cerebral affection or a tendency to bleedings are better without much sun bathing.—N. Y. Voice.