SUNLIGHT. 95 



As a Protection from Disease During the prevalence 

 of certain epidemic diseases the inhabitants who occupy nouses on 

 the side of the street upon which the sun shines directly are less 

 subject to the disorder than those who live on the shaded side. In 

 all cities visited by the cholera the greatest number of deaths come 

 in narrow streets, and on the sides of those having a northern 

 exposure, where the salutary beams of the sun are excluded. 



Except in severe inflammatory diseases of the eyes or brain the 

 very common practice of darkening the sick-room is a very impru- 

 dent one. The restorative influence of daylight is thus excluded, 

 and also the grateful and natural succession of light and darkness 

 which favors sleep at the appropriate time and divests the period of 

 sickness of the monotony and weariness of perpetual night. 



Essential to Physical Development Sunlight is im- 

 portant in the development and preservation of the physical system. 

 In confirmation of this statement we have only to refer to the fact 

 that children who are kept in dark alleys, cellars, factories and 

 mines are frequently aftiicted with rickets and various deformities 

 and swelling of the bones, and especially with troubles of the spine. 

 This occurs not only among the poor, who live in dark, damp places, 

 but among the rich, who live in fine, dry, airy dwelllings, but keep 

 their children a considerable portion of the time in-doors, secluded 

 from the sun's light and deprived of exercise. As vegetables lose 

 their healthy color and strength when deprived of sunlight, so with 

 children: Their muscles become soft and delicate, the nervous 

 system deranged, the digestive organs enfeebled, tae blood watery 

 and pale, and the skin loses its healthy, ruddy complexion and has 

 a pale, sickly hue. People who live in houses much shaded by 

 trees are more subject to certain forms of disease than those whose 

 dwellings are freely exposed to the sun. Shade -trees should be at a 

 distance from the house, that they may afford a grateful retreat for 

 the hot days, and never so near the house as to snade the buildings 

 or the windows. A model situation, in respect to external ventila- 

 ti^n and sunlight, is exemplified in the illustration on page 56. 



Admit Sunlight to Rooms When the ladies of this 

 country take as deep an interest in their own healthful development 

 and the well-being of their children, as they now do in the elegant 

 gloom of their parlors, and will give free admittance to the life- 

 giving light of the sun during the entire day, regardless of the fact 

 that it may dim the bright colors of the carpets and hangings, 

 thinking more of dissipating dampness, mould and the effluvia of 

 human bodies those fruitful causes of disease than of preserving 

 by darkness the seeming freshness of their furniture and apart- 

 ments, we shall have fewer unhappy families, fewer mothers will 

 wear their lives out in the servile care of puny and. sickly children, 

 and fewer husbands will find their severest toil in the nursing cares 

 of their home and be obliged to return to their business or labor in 

 the morning more wearied than they left it the previous evening; 



