THE SUN IN SICKNESS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Jul 26, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 30.

THE SUN IN SICKNESS.

DID you ever notice that when animals are sick or tired, they seek a sunny place to lie down? The uncivilized races of men do the same. Savages and animals alike lie down in the sun when they are sick or fatigued. It is instinct that prompts them to do this. They know nothing of the color of the sun's rays, nothing as to the size of the sun, or its distance from the earth, or the revolution of the earth around the sun. They are simply led by an unerring instinct of nature to seek the sun for healing. They lie in the sun, bask in it, and its potent rays penetrate every tissue and fiber of their bodies, bringing to them a soothing balm, a calming nervine, and the real elixir of life.

Did you ever notice what civilized man does when he is sick or tired? He goes into a house, into an unwholesome room, no sunlight, no fresh air. If he must have heat, he gets artificial heat. He saturates every tissue and fiber of his body, not with the rays of the sun, but with poisonous drugs. The whole atmosphere about him is depressing and ruinous both to mind and body. Sometimes, in spite of it all, he manages to live, and get out in the air and sunshine again. Sometimes he does not, and the undertaker comes.

Instinct in some cases is better than civilization. Instinct teaches the savage and the animal that the main sources of life are sunshine and fresh air, that both are necessary to maintain life or to restore health. So the animal and the savage have sense enough, instinct enough, to stay out-doors in the sunlight and fresh air, while civilized man shuts himself up in a close, darkened room, away from the very elements that would heal him.—Australasian Good Health.