Gain Health and Power from the Sun

Gain Health and Power from the Sun By Elizabeth Cannon Porter "Search thou for sunlight and health is there." Persian Proverb. Sunlight is the greatest of health restoratives, the most efficacious of antiseptics. The farmer and his fam- ily are rich in sunlight. In large cities sun and space are bought only at great expense. The sun keeps the farmer's family healthy, his house wholesome, his animals thrifty, his stables sanitary. It kills disease germs and makes his crops grow. Wherever the sunlight penetrates it disinfects; germs grow in the dark and dampness. Houses should have many windows. Bed clothes should be exposed to the sun. The best way to clean rugs and carpets is by exposure to the sun. Cellar-grown vegetables are blanched. Men long in deep mines become pale and sick. Sunlight brings back the throb of life once more. Hippocrates, father of medicine, had a sunlight temple on the island of Cos, where sunlight and music were his medicaments, with "water extern- ally, internally, eternally." He knew the secret of the ages, that sunlight is the source of life, an infinite reservoir of energy. Dr. C. W. Saleeby of London in his Sunlight and Health describes the magic power of Doctor Sun, the world's oldest and best physician: "Water baths are good, air baths are good, but sun baths are the best of all," says he, "because of the antiseptic and stimulative effect of light. Blood on its way to the skin, whipped under the stimulus of helio- therapy, rushes through the muscles, massaging them and giving them strength." He adds that sun medi- cine is revolutionizing medicine and surgery the world over. Rollier says: "Pigmentation, or tanning, transforms the ultra-violet into red rays, which penetrate clear through the body." Their healing effect it unerring. Columbia University has discovered that sunlight controls the chemistry of the blood. The discovery was con- firmed at the Home for Hebrew In- fants, New York, where the summer sun increased phosphates, lime, and iron in the blood. It has also been found that some poisons that are fatal during the dark months, are re- sisted by the system in summer. To Denmark and Switzerland the world owes a debt of gratitude, for it was the Danes and Swiss in modern times who discovered and demon- strated the curative power of the sun, although both Esculapius and Zoro- aster are reported to have practiced the sun cure anciently. These nations have built institutes that have revolu- tionized the treatment of numerous diseases. At Leysin the sun-cure institutes or clinics that were started in 1903 have an average of 1000 patients at all seasons. The skin absorbs the sun's rays, after which bronchitis, rheuma tism, tuberculosis, and colds in many cases quickly vanish. Dr. Roget claims that sunlight tends to prevent septic processes in wounds and sores. Sunlight, if continuous, starts new cell activity, following which diseased tissues fall off. Light awakens the cells until they gain power to resist disease. Rickets, born in darkness, is now cured by sunlight, as are many other ailments. Sunlight will kill smallpox and anthrax germs. The sun's rays, properly directed, are gradually eliminating the knife in

580 IMPROVEMENT ERA May, 1929 such diseases as surgical tuberculosis. "The specific warming of the blood in sunlight destroys diphtheria toxin," declares Dr. Carl Sonne. Sunlight is a masseur and has the same building- up effect that exercise has on the muscles. Robust children, vigorous men and women gain immunity from disease because they dwell in sunlight and sterilized air. Those who are ill and weak quickly realize that it is the sun- light and air that start new cell activity and bring the bloom of health to the feeble and the discouraged. The U. S. Department of Agri- culture reports that range cattle are non-tubercular. Sunlight prevents tuberculosis in cattle even in the cold Northwestern states. Cows fed in the sun produce more calcium and phosphorus than are pro- duced by cows fed in the shade. The sunlight acts on both cows and fod- der. The best milk is produced in the sunlight. Egg production is likewise increased by sunlight as poultrymen know. Truly "the sun is the oldest and best doctor, the eternal fountain whence life and health forever flow." The Unmailed Letter By Pearl Spencer Dear Father: We had a peach of a chapel address today, "The Education I Wish I Might Have Had." It made us think. And I'm going to break loose, too, Dad, and tell you about some mem- ories which some fellows have, but which I haven't. I wish, Dad, that I could remember one Fourth of July, or one county fair, or one canyon trip when you had quit your work and come along with us kids. We used to feel guilty going off and leaving you grinding away at home — especially at first. We got rather used to it as a matter of course after awhile. And that's the worst of it, you know. Our selfishness soon ceased to shame us. I wish that I could remember one evening when you had left your news- paper and big chair by the table lamp and had come over and listened to us read, or sung with us, or told us stories of the things you must have done when jyou were a youngster. You know, we really never knew very much about what kind of boy you'd been. How could we? I used to wonder sometimes if you ever were one or ;not. And though you were never really "cross" with any one of us, did you ever notice how we used to keep glancing at you, to see whether our laughing was too loud or if our romping was disturbing your reading? Can you understand why we used to draw a breath of relief when you went upstairs to bed and we had a few minutes of real freedom before mother bundled us off, too? I wish I could remember just one Sunday when we all went to church in the old buggy, instead of us boys going in the morning alone, and you and mother always in the afternoon. I used to think Sunday School was a place from which big folks were ex- empt by reason of their superiority. I wish I could remember one season when you had planned the farm work with us, or even any small part of it, instead of simply telling us each morn- ing what that day's work would be. You can't imagine how we rebelled at that, Dad — not the work itself, as you

May, 1919 THE UNMAILED LETTER 581 supposed when we did muster up enough courage to complain, but at the drabness of never seeing the end which you had in view or your reasons for anything. You could have made us love the farm, I believe. Of course you made it pay, so that we were able to see the results of our work; but we never knew just how they came about and felt like cogs in a machine. I wish, above all else, that I might remember just one talk in which we discussed together the problems that trouble every adolescent boy and which are so hard for him to solve alone. You have always been so superbly clean yourself that I know your view- point would have been as a great light sweeping through a fog. I esteemed you as the most pure-minded man I knew, and that was a vast help to me, and yet I had to pick the facts I learned about life haphazardly from any source I could. And you surely know what that means, though I used to wonder if you did. I've come through clean, so far, Dad, and I be- lieve I'm on pretty solid ground by now; but couldn't you — surely I'd have let you — have made the going a little safer and surer for me.'' I shudder when I think of the chances we were running — you of losing your boy, and I of losing myself. Please don't think I'm blaming you. No man could ever have worked harder for his family, or thought more of their future, or been prouder of them. Don't think I'm not remem- bering all that your generosity has made possible for me. No one could have taught us better how to work, or set us such an example of honesty, and industry, and clean-living. You just didn't know that we needed a lot of things you had with you all the time, more than we needed many of the material things you toiled so to pro- vide. You just didn't see, I know, that though we might make money for ourselves for long after you were gone, we never could make for ourselves the memories of you that might have mellowed and enriched our lives for- ever. You couldn't have been better to us — no father could — but surely, Dad, surely, you could have been in- finitely nearer. Your loving son, Bruce. P. S. I can't send this, Dad. After all these years you wouldn't under- stand. But I wish you knew that I'd give my four years at College, gladly, if you only could. Unrest Mesa, Arizona When I am satisfied with things that go, And write "Content" as finis to my day, When I no longer yearn. I shall not know The bigness of unrest along my way. The tossing oak takes tether from the storm. The restive rain enlivens field and sod, From lash of wave the beetling crag takes form — 'Tis man's unrest that reaches out to God! BERTHA A. KLEINMAN