Effecct on children of sunlight
If we need further proof, all that is necessary is an observa¬tion of the differences in stature and appearance of the boys and girls of the plain and mountain sections of the country and those of cities,especially the cities that have many manufac- tories with a heavy film of smoke hovering overhead and filling the atmosphere at the breathing plane. Note the hardihood of the boys and girls of our northwestern rural districts, where a combination of bright sunlight in summer and cool or cold nights and winters is the rule and the more or less dwarfed and stunted figures of the city-dwelling children. Compare even the city children having access to the parks and those of the slums and tenement districts, and the comparative in¬fluence of sunlight and darkness will be apparent. Delicate children, who are “born tired and never get over it,” need sun¬light more than any other single health factor except proper food.
By careful scientific experiment it has been proved that. when all other factors are conducive to rickets, the disease will not develop if sunlight is provided, even in comparatively small doses. So active are the rays of sunlight that general sun-baths every second day will correct rachitic changes. Furthermore, if both wrists, for instance, are affected with rickets, and one of these be excluded from the sunlight during the sun-bath, the unexposed as well as the irradiated wrist will be restored to normal. Artificial sunlight has also been proved to be capable of preventing and curing rickets, and even such sunlight as reaches the inhabitants of a city like New York has a prophylactic and curative influence.