REACTIONS TO ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION 



By Floeence E. Meibsi 

 Division of Radiation and Organisms, Smithsonian Institution 



[With 2 plates] 



The health-giving power of the sun's rays was recognized long 

 ago in ancient Greece, In the temple of Hippocrates there existed 

 terraces for sun exposure, and Herodotus, in his history, tells of 

 "barbarians" who are covered all over with clothes and have a pale- 

 colored skin and feeble muscles. In the Roman baths there was 

 always a solarium, and Plinius writes in one of liis letters that he 

 has been ill and is going to take sun baths for convalescence. 



Numerous medieval engravings and miniatures have for their sub- 

 jects the love of water, air, and light. Then in the seventeenth 

 century, perhaps as a matter of fashion, the bath became a remedy 

 and the value of sunlight was disregarded. It was not until the 

 end of the eighteenth century that a Swiss by the name of Rickly 

 developed a cure for diseases by treatment in the open air and sun 

 baths. Unfortunately, only a few physicians were influenced by his 

 ideas. In the nineteenth century the poet Michelet, seeing children 

 playing on a beach beside the sea in the sunshine, wrote the following 

 sentence, which is startling for liis time: "De toutes les fleurs, c'est 

 la fleur humaine qui a le plus besoin de soleil." (Of all the flowers, 

 the human flower most needs the sunshine.) 



Quite by accident a hint of the curative action of sunlight was 

 given in the middle of the nineteenth century to physicians at Paris. 

 It was customary at that time for the city of Paris to board sick 

 orphaned children with peasant families in the country in order to 

 prevent epidemics in orphanages. Many were sent to the seashore 

 near Le Touquet, since the cost of living was not high and there 

 was plenty of good milk. A widow named Madame Duhamel was 

 especially successful with the children entrusted to her care. She 

 asked for the most unhealthy children, those crippled or with 

 diseased glands, and after a year of her care they became strong, 

 healthy, and happy. Her method was to carry all the children in 

 a wheelbarrow to the beach every morning where she took off their 

 clothes in order to save them from being soiled and let the children 



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