practical papers—sunlight in the house. 435 
for half an hour in the morning and for the same length of time 
near sunset This is the only direct sunlight that enters the house. 
Is it a wonder that in this home the mother has been an invalid 
for years, the father had a fever seven years in succession, some 
of the young children have died, and others yet live pale and 
feeble? And yet all over the land are north tenements just as 
unfitted to live in, as the one we have mentioned. And aside 
from the cheerfulness and mental quiet — themselves highly con¬ 
ducive to recovery from sickness — light, (the bright and direct 
rays of the sun,) has a thermic influence upon the mind and body 
when prostrated by serious ailments, and acts beneficially by 
chemically purifying the blood of the patient, as well as the at¬ 
mosphere of the room he occupies. It is only in certain ophthal¬ 
mic diseases and a small number of other cases, where it is neces¬ 
sary for the direct rays of the sun to be excluded from the sick 
room. 
The same results that follow from living in dwellings and apart¬ 
ments so situated that the free admission of the sunlight during the 
forenoon is impossible, also follow from living in one differently 
located, but too densely shaded by trees. Trees about our houses 
and in our villages and cities are beautiful objects, affording grate¬ 
ful shade in summer; and acting as conservators of the public 
health ; but when they are so numerous as to exclude the rays of 
the sun from our living and sleeping rooms, they become a posi¬ 
tive source of injury and ill health, and should no longer be toler¬ 
ated. Hundreds of our country dwellings and our houses in 
towns are unsuitable for human beings to live in from the presence 
of too many shade trees, and physicians, in many cases, have or¬ 
dered them to be cutaway, with the same results that would fol¬ 
low the changing of patients from a shaded to a well lighted 
room. Even the removal of a few small trees produces wonder¬ 
ful results. In one instance, the windows of a school-room at¬ 
tached to a hospital for orphans were shaded by a few mulberry 
trees, which after a time were cut away ; and the change for the 
better, in the physical condition of the patients after their expo¬ 
sure to the unimpeded light of the sun, was most marked. Nu¬ 
merous cases of a similar character are on record in our medical 
annals, from which we could draw largely for purposes of illustra- 
