OILS. 525 
open air. All that can be patiently accomplished by the 
enlightened measures now under pursuance by skilled doctors, 
on extending lines, is to rescue the large body of consumptive 
sufferers in whom the disease has been personally acquired, and 
not inherited through innate tubercular propensities; whilst 
more slowly changing the whole constitutional existence of others, 
as vet beyond curative reach except by degrees throughout 
more than one lifetime. As to the methods, and prosecution 
of open-air treatment, sanatoriums for the purpose, in suitable 
positions on high ground as essential, are now multiplying under 
properly organized supervision. Their experience is as yet 
somewhat crude, yet on the whole convincing. Sir Thomas 
Barlow has said in a medical address (1902) at Manchester : 
“T believe it will be found that children are more tolerant of 
exposure to open winds than adults are; and the importance 
to healthy children of passing a great part of the day in the 
open air has been gradually apprehended by the rich; whilst 
the poor have been compelled to learn it as a rough lesson by 
their own conditions ; but neither rich, nor poor, yet appreciate, 
how large a slice of the twenty-four hours in every child’s daily 
life is passed in the bedroom. The traditional fear of air, and 
of wide-open windows, which is perhaps a survival of ancient 
malarial experience, has still to be unlearned in this country 
of ours.” Again: ‘“ The test of a climate suitable for a con- 
sumptive to winter in is not the mean height of temperature, 
nor even the absence of extremes, but the number of available 
days for getting an appetite by air and exercise, under the open 
sky”; so taught Dr. King Chambers as long ago as 1876. Like- 
wise, “in springtime the sunshine compensates for a good deal of 
cold, although perhaps much actual warmth is not then felt 
from its rays, for there is scarcely any warmth in the chemical 
rays of the sun,—those rays which stimulate plant life, and animal 
life, yet are highly destructive to the microbes of disease. It is 
a significant observation that in April, and May, despite the 
cold winds which may prevail, the actinic power of the sun’s 
rays reaches a maximum. At no other time in the year, not 
even during the hot days of July, and August, are the health- 
giving rays of the sun so intense as in spring. Certain chemical 
compounds prove to be more readily disintegrated, and at a 
quicker rate, in April and May, than in any other months of 
the year. Quite a considerable number of chemical salts give 
