AUGUST in the holiday month, and if there is a cloudless sky, people will go sun-bathing by the hundred thousand, not because it amuses them, or because they feel that it does them good, but because they have read articles and books, extolling the blessings of sunshine. In a cold, damp and cloudy land, people long for the sun, and they see in the sun the greatest blessing.
In countries which enjoy powerful sunlight during many months, the sun is considered a great danger. People living in tropical or semi-tropical countries rejoice in the English mists and rains and exclaim : “What a lovely mist, what beautiful rain, I wish we could have them in our country !”.
Natives of sunny countries never expose themselves to the sun at its hottest and strongest. Instinct and experience tells them of the danger. That danger is very real. Italians and Spaniards hold their siesta during the hottest hours of the day and they begin moving about when the sun is gone. The streets of Naples and Palermo are crowded after sunset.
The African negroes, though well-protected against the sun by their skin, dread the powerful orb. Animals, with unerring instinct, go into hiding during the hottest hours of the day. Birds, rabbits, deer, are invisible. Our cats and dogs love the sun, and bask in the sun when its heat is moderate. When it is extreme they suffer acutely and show it.
Over-exposure to the sun at its hottest is extremely dangerous. Many men and women, after basking in the sun to their acute discomfort are badly, and often permanently, upset. I have seen numerous cases of the most intractable dermatitis, and the sufferers have told me : “Some years ago I went to Brighton or to Blackpool and did some sun bathing.
I got badly scorched and ever since I have had this skin trouble. I must not go into the sun even if the weather is mild. Otherwise a fearful rash appears at one.” In other cases chronic nerve troubles follow over-exposure to the sun and in others again the eyesight is injured. I peak with experience. Many years ago I tried sun bathing. Although my skin tans easily I experienced severe injury in body and nerves and it took a long time until I was normal once more.
Last, but not least, there is sun cancer, which is particularly frequently found among farmers and agricultural labourers, brick layers and sailors. Sun cancer develops as a rule on the unshaded parts of the face about the ears, cheek, nose, mouth, chin, neck.
It is often seen in this country and it is particularly frequent in Australia where men work in the open in the tropical heat exposed to the “merciless arrows of Apollo”. Apollo was the sun good of the Greeks, and his deadly arrows were the sun rays.
The sun is, of course, a most wonderful health factor. Sunlight has been used with excellent effect in the treatment of tuberculosis, particularly in tuberculosis of the bones, which formerly was treated surgically. Dr. Rollier, of Leysin, in Switzerland, and Sir Henry Gauvain, of Alton, and Hayling Island, have been the pioneers of sun bathing for the treatment of pulmonary and bone tuberculosis and of many other disorders and diseases.
However, Rollier and Gauvain discovered that over- exposure to the sun, especially if the patients do not tan easily, is a great danger and may lead to a fearful exacerbation of the disease, endangering the patients life, or killing him. Patients who are given sun treatment are not allowed to lie in the powerful sun for hours.
They are given only a short exposure to start with, while the sun is low, shortly after sunrise and before sunset. Only the feet are exposed for a quarter of an hour or so, and very gradually further parts of the body are exposed, and the utmost care is taken to guard against an aggravation through over-exposure, which might prove deadly.
Cancer in every form is a disease of extremely slow development. People who have been poisoned through exposure to X-rays, Radium, Arsenic, Aniline, Tar, etc., may go about for years without any apparent ill-effect. It takes, as a rule, about twenty years until the poisoning of the system leads to the development of well-known forms of cancer, called X-ray cancer, Radium cancer, Arsenic cancer, Aniline cancer, Tar cancer, etc.
Many years after over-indulgence in sun bathing the well-known growths may develop. It is to be hoped that the numerous readers of “HEAL THYSELF” will be cautious and will take care of my warning. In a decade or so there will probably be a large crop of sunbathers sun cancers, a disease which is easily avoidable.
James Ellis Barker wrote a very large number of books, both under the name James Ellis Barker and under his real German name Otto Julius Eltzbacher, The Truth about Homœopathy; Rough Notes on Remedies with William Murray; Chronic Constipation; The Story of My Eyes; Miracles Of Healing and How They are Done; Good Health and Happiness; New Lives for Old: How to Cure the Incurable; My Testament of Healing; Cancer, the Surgeon and the Researcher; Cancer, how it is Caused, how it Can be Prevented with a foreward by William Arbuthnot Lane; Cancer and the Black Man etc.