Restricted material
This image cannot be viewed online.
Wellcome Collection members can request access to restricted materials for viewing in the Library.
Sunshine and open air : their influence on health, with special reference to the Alpine climate / by Leonard Hill.
- Hill, Leonard, Sir, 1866-
- Date:
- 1925
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Sunshine and open air : their influence on health, with special reference to the Alpine climate / by Leonard Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.
151/182 (page 121)
![should be the clothing, a fact recognized by all athletes. To work in a shirt open at the neck with bare arms, or better stripped to the waist, and with shorts and boots only, is the proper condition for warm weather or the tropics, the skin of course first submitted to pigmentation by graduated exposures, and so made immune to sunburn. Most town folk in Britain, arising from sedentary employment, and starting out in winter for open-air exercise, feel the cold air outside, and put on overcoats. They soon become warmed by exercise which may increase their heat produc- tion five times or more, and then are burdened by over- clothing and slacken in their rate of walking. This is a mistaken habit. It does no harm to go out and feel cold until warmed by exercise; the impulsion to vigorous exercise does good. It is only the old and feeble who require very warm clothing, those whose fire of life cannot be fanned up by vigorous exercise and exposure. Babies and children nowadays are very often grossly overclothed and the natural vigour of their bodies thereby weakened. The writer, for example, came across the case of a child (aged five) of wealthy parents, who were terrified of its “catching cold” and were having it treated at several guineas a dose with an “ anti-cold”’ vaccine. This child, put out to live in the country for the sake of its health, had been educated to be nervous of the slightest exposure to wind or rain out of doors. Its body was clothed by a double silk vest lined with thermogene, two Jaeger wool vests, a silk blouse, a wool cardigan, a leather sleeveless waistcoat such as air pilots wear, and a pilot jacket. Its regulating mechanism was strained, its metabolism lowered, and its natural activity and joy of life reduced. It was endangered of catching those very complaints from which its foolish fond parents sought to protect it. In the case of a doctor’s baby, the child was put to bed with woollen night-cap and woollen gloves, woollen vest and pants, woollen nightgown, long woollen socks, and then covered with blankets. What means had the child of getting rid of its body heat, excepting](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32806668_0151.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)