Children and Sun-bathing
Now as to the sun-bath for children. Children naturally grow into adults if they maintain life at all. But all do not develop alike. Even discounting inherited and individual dif¬ferences and varying diets, children develop differently. One of the most important of all influences upon their develop¬ment is sunlight. A child who receives an abundance of sun-light from infancy through the growing period, or even for the first few years of life, is vastly different from a child who lives in darkness, even if every other factor is the same in the two cases. The latter will develop certain physical weaknesses from which he can never completely recover. As was pointed out earlier, the various mineral elements and vita¬mins present in food are made more available by sunlight; and as children are growing and have cells greedy for every element required in the makeup of the body, the influence of sunlight starvation is greater in childhood and infancy than in adult life.
The bones of children show, perhaps, more than any other part of their bodies, the influence of a deficiency or an abun¬dance of sunlight. While the teeth are not, strictly speaking, hones, they share the same loss or gain. The effect of sun¬light upon the calcium and phosphorus content of the blood, and the relationship between an assimilable supply of these minerals and the bony system have been noted. But it is in childhood that the bones make the most pronounced growth, and it is during this time that denial of the elements of growth causes the greatest derangement. The report of an experi¬ment to demonstrate or ascertain the value of sunlight upon growing children will prove interesting and instructive.