When to sun-bathe
Having learned how to take the sun-bath and when not to take it, the question is: When and where shall we take it? As for the time of day, there is some difference of opinion. Some heliotherapists claim that, during the hot season, the sun-bath should be taken only during the early and late hours of the day. When the sun is intensely bright and hot, they say, the actinic and heat rays are too powerful and are liable to produce depression. Those who hold this view, however, are much in the minority, and even they prescribe sun-baths, during the cooler season, in the middle of the day, when there is a larger proportion of both the actinic and the heat rays in sunlight.
Rollier claims that for best results there should not be too much of the heat rays, which are depressing and fatiguing. In fact, he prefers relatively cool surroundings, and recom¬mends taking the sun-bath in summer between six and nine A. M. and after three p. M. The morning, however, he considers better than the afternoon. The trouble in lowlands during the summer, in many sections at least, is that there is no rela¬tively cool time of the day for days at a time. Certainly one should not wait for such a time to begin sun-baths, or halt treatment when a hot and sultry period comes. If the intense heat in the middle of the day is avoided, or if, when this is the only time available, the exposures are short, nothing but good should result from the irradiations, if other factors are favorable. Rollier says that sun-baths taken with the tempera¬ture in the shade up to 64 degrees, may be called sun-baths, while those taken with a temperature higher than this should be called hot-air baths. But by whatever name they arc called, they would be sun-baths, nevertheless, and very effective ones if not overdone.