SOUTH AFRICAN SUNSHINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 141, 17 June 1935, Page 6

SOUTH AFRICAN SUNSHINE.

The suggestion made by Mr. Bernard Shaw that South Africa may not really be suitable for the white race on account of an excess of sunshine is not new, having been advanced some time ago by Dr. C. Louis Leipoldt, a distinguished medical man of Dutch descent (says the "Christchurch Times"). He declared that there was good reason to believe that the third and subsequent generations of Europeans in South Africa were inferior to the parent stock. The conclusion he reached after a careful study of 50,000 children, was that there was a marked difference in stamina between first and third generation children. While the grandchildren of European stock were invariably physically an improvement on the parent stock, it was found that great-grandchildren exhibited degenerative changes that in some cases were physical, mental and moral. It was also pointed out by the same authority that herds built up from imported stock always dwindled in size unless new blood was introduced at intervals. He advanced the theory that the deterioration was due to the excess of powerful sunshine. At Kimberley, for example, the average hours of sunshine throughout the year are nearly eleven per day, and over most of the interior of South Africa the amount of sunshine is unusually large. Sunlight such as is experienced in these areas is known to be a very powerful factor in causing exhaustion, and Dr. Leipoldt held tho£ some of its exhausting splendour might adversely affect human beings. The early South African settlers treated the sun with more respect than do their present-day descendants, by resting during the hottest hours of summer days, and by building houses with central courtyards and windows with Venetian shutters. These may have been important factors in preventing racial deterioration. If, however, the excess of sunshine is the main cause of racial deterioration it does not necessarily follow that South Africa is not a white man's country, for steps might easily bo taken to minimise the evil.