SUN MENACE TO WHITES?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19894, 23 March 1939, Page 2

SUN MENACE TO WHITES?

RESEARCH IN AFRICA

CATTLE DETER 10RATION An important investigation is on foot in the Union of South Africa, where some scientists maintain that the sunshine has a degenerating influence upon Nordic stocks. Six observation stations have already been chosen, and research will include the effects of sunshine on the human population and on. the country’s fauna and flora in seeking an answer to the question: Is the influence of the sun likely to limit tlie development of European stocks settled in Africa? Already experiments which have been in progress for a period sufficient to cover several generations of British cattle, are reported to indicate progressive deterioration. In these experiments the diet was so carefully regulated as to be identical both in chemical and vitamin content with the natural diet of the parent stock in England; housing and living conditions similarly approximated. Yet a marked a.nd steady deterioration in bone and other tissues has taken place. Unknown Factor It is contended that this must be due to some factor which operates in South Africa and not in Britain; or to the absence in South Africa of some factor that operates in Britain. As it is possible that this unkown deteriorative factor is Africa’s sunshine—solar radiation to a degree-that is pernicious—investigations are being carried out with a view to establishing a nation-wide Solar Radiation Survey, with observation stations at Stellenbosch, Johannesburg, Durban, Mont-aux-Sources (.Drakensberg), Nelspoort (Karoo), and Bloemfontein. Insufficient radiation is known to retard development of skeletal structure, teeth, and other tissues. But some maintain that excess of sunlight may bring early senility and cause malignant growths. They point to the Arab and the Hindu as types of mankind that not only age quickly, but lack stamina and physique. This may be due to malnutrition, but malnutrition in its turn may, according to this theory, be dependent on the influence exercised by too strong solar radiation upon flora and fauna Sunshine and PestilenceIt is also recognised that the Nordic races fall away in Eastern climates. The "country-born” population of India, for instance, representing the second or third generation of pure British stock born in India (with no racial admixture), is markedly different from the successive waves of young men who go out from Britain to the services or into commerce or the professions. In the Persian Gulf it is not the native Persians (in their far origins also Nordic) who stand up best to work during the very trying hot weather, but the British.

The therapeutic aspect of the Union’s investigations will be no less important. What is the bactericidal value of the rays of the South African sun? How does it compare with that of solar radiation in Europe, which is the basis of world medical experience? How does the African sunlight affect the European nervous system?

There is, moreover, the public health aspect. Take, for instance, the incidence of plague. This is carried by the fleas which are the familiar vermin of the veld rats. What is the effect of surface radiation on the rats themselves, their burrows and their food? Is radiation one of the causative influences affecting the rats through their food and the plague lleas through the rats?