SUNBURN.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19057, 20 July 1927, Page 7

SUNBURN.

SYDNEY DOCTOR'S WARNING. (raoa otm own corbkspokdikt.) SYDNEY, July 14/ The average Australian, in his love of sunshine, is apt to regard as efferniaate any precaution against sunburn. To be browned to a healthy-looking tan colour, is the fashion. That sunburn, however, has its dangers, much as precautions against it may be derided, has been emphasised, in a thesis on rodent tumours submitted to the University

of Sydney, by Dr. Edmund fl. Molesworth. Observations over a long period, be says, revealed* that fairskinned people, especially those < with tendency to freckle, and the blonde types in general, were most susceptible to rodent ulcer and allied .conditions. People, it is asserted, with brown eyes and olive skin are rarely affected. The fact that there is no instance of a Chinese or coloured patient suffering from the disease is illustrated, as is also the point-that, in nearly all cases it nas been found that the patients had either passed the whole or most of their-lives in >the country, or had at least followed outdoor occu-

pations. I Investigations, it is asserted, have led td the'conclusion that the greatmajority of cases 'of rodent- tumours and allied conditions. are due to the irritant effects of ionisation t supplied by the effect of the ultra-violet com-, ponenfc"of sunlight. The black raced of the tropics are able to avoid the dangerous effects of too much sralight because their skin will not allow, the

penetration of the harmful ultra-violet This warning will come as something of a shock to those whose chief delight is to bake and frizzle on the beaches in the summer time, and who have escaped the acute effects of sunburn. Whether this warning of the effects of chronic sunburn, however, will be heeded is another question, especially as it has been sounded, not in tho midst of summer, but in the middlo of winter, when sunshine is hailed with delight. _________