SUN BATHING

Evening Star, Issue 20346, 30 November 1929, Page 23

SUN BATHING

LET IT BE GEMTLE Our ancestors fought shy of the sun. They used thick woollen curtains in their houses, and covered their bodies with thick woollen garments in summer and used parasols. We have gone to the opposite extreme, and now expose ourselves to the sun at its strongest, because wo have read somewhere of its wonderful curative powers, says an overseas authority. Excess is dangerous! The most wholesome food becomes injurious, and so does the most wholesome drink if taken without discretion, while the most wonderful curative drugs kill instead of curing if too much is taken. Among the greatest healing (and the quickest killing) drugs are strychnine, arsenic, belladonna. Likewise, the powerful sun is terribly dangerous.’ At midday birds'and animals hide in the shade in summer and come forth again in the cool of the evening. The savages and the civilised southern nations also flee from the powerful sun. If an Italian or a Frenchman encounters sun bathers when the sun is at its hottest he will say: “They must bo English. They are quite mad!” In innumerable cases over-exposure to the powerful sun causes the most intractable skin diseases, nerve diseases, digestive diseases, and even cancer, Sun cancer and rodent ulcer attack the unprotected, unshaded portions of face and neck, and tuberculosis is also aggravated by over-strong sunlight.