RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 95 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



all of that type you can do them a tremendous amount of damage even 

 toward suicidal impulse from high windows.- 



Court apartments unhealthy 



The lack of natural light in rear apartments has a bad effect on the 

 health of tenants. First of all, I find a great many women suffering from 

 anemia due to the fact that the apartment is not properly aerated by sunlit 

 air. Then, because of the congestion, the noise, and the fact that the purity- 

 ing influences on the air of the court is not present, we find many who suffer 

 from marked nervous conditions. In any of the side street apartments 

 where there are no facilities for natural light, practically every inhabitant 

 is below par as an individual unless he takes care of himself, goes out and 

 plays golf or tennis, and so gets away from the bad influences due to non- 

 sunlit air. 



Importance of sunlight. 



Air that is not aerated by sun light is absolutely injurious to health. 

 If you place a tubercular patient in a room lit by artificial light — gas light — 

 as in a typical apartment in New York City, and let no sunlit air come 

 through, you can obtain specimens of tubercular bacilli for a long time 

 afterward, but if the apartment is open to sunlit air two weeks afterwards 

 you will find a perfectly sterile atmosphere, insofar as tuberculosis is con- 

 cerned. The tubercular bacilli is destroyed. Of course, it is manifestly 

 impossible to get sun light during the whole day. At most it is perhaps 

 only possible to get it for an hour or two during the day. The sun light 

 shining on the floor during those one or two hours each day would be 

 sufficient to accomplish that purpose, but it would take a little longer time 

 than if more sun light was available. In Switzerland they put patients per- 

 fectly nude where the sun light can play on them, and they brown up and 

 become perfectly tanned, and these patients clear up more rapidly than 

 people who don't undergo such treatment. In other words, air combined 

 with sun light becomes very beneficial. They leave them lying there with- 

 out a stitch of clothing on for a long time. 



Any law or ordinance which will restrict multiple dwellings within the 

 City of New York yet to be built to five or six stories, will be a positive 

 benefit to the city from the viewpoint of health. 



If the unoccupied area of yards and courts be made more extensive 

 than at present, giving more light and air to those who dwell in multiple 

 dwellings, I would look upon that, too, as a distinct advantage to health. 



I would go so far as to say that there is urgent necessity, in view of the 

 present rapid extension of nervous disorders in New York City, for a 

 change in the laws which will bring about lower buildings and wider and 

 more extensive unoccupied areas. 



Aside from the healthful effect of sunlit air there is a peculiar value 

 from the standpoint of preventing nervous troubles or disorders, in giving 

 a man having a chance to work in a garden, to take care of a lawn, or to 

 take care of trees and shrubs. In fact, we frequently are forced to have 

 city dwellers cease living in the city and send them to such places to give 

 them an opportunity to get next to nature. You assist them in this way. 

 We live in congested houses with all kinds of noises about us. We live 

 with the tension of having our neighbors continually spying upon us. Now, 

 take a man living under such conditions, and place him — if he is of a 

 nervous type — in a house and garden of his own. The restraint is lost, and 



