90 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



material and exposed in glass boxes to the sun 

 for five or six hours daily, others being similarly 

 infected but protected from sunshine. The 

 animals which had received the sunshine died 

 in 24, 39, 52, and 89 days respectively, whilst 

 those which had not been sunned succumbed in 

 from 29, 25, 26, and 41 days ; or, in other words, 

 De Renzi found that insolation had very materially 

 increased the infected animals' power of coping 

 with tuberculosis. 



The part which sunshine plays, or may be made 

 to play, in disease is very obscure, but it would 

 appear at least justifiable to assume that it is an 

 agent which further investigation may show we 

 cannot afford to disregard, contributing as it may 

 to the production of a healthy tone in the system, 

 and thereby materially assisting the body to defy 

 the insidious attacks made upon it from without. 



The so-called open-air treatment of consump- 

 tion which has made such giant strides in the last 

 few years is an example of how, by contributing 

 to the general health of an individual, the powers 

 for resisting a localised disease may be so in- 

 creased that the latter can, in many cases, be 

 thrown off altogether. In no country has more 

 progress been made in the establishment of insti- 

 tutions for the cure of consumption on these lines 

 than in Germany. At the end of the year 1899 



