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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.
153/182 (page 123)
![the fork, and have worked in them ever since. I find it very pleasant and enjoyable and am sorry to have to put clothes on when I leave my work; the most enjoyable part of it to me is not the sun, but the feeling of the air in motion on my skin. Though exceptionally strong and healthy, I have, all my life, been an exceedingly chilly - mortal that dreaded the cold: it was indeed mainly owing to that fact that I left England in search of a warmer climate, and for the last few years this inability to stand the cold has been increasing. Now (it is 9 p.m., and a fortnight from mid-winter day) I am sitting here perfectly naked writing this, in a cold, draughty house, on a bare wooden chair, and the very same spot where this time last year I could not sit without a cushion on the chair, an extra thick pair of woollen trousers, a thick flannel shirt, a woollen sweater and a heavy overcoat, and then I’d have to go to bed for warmth, a good deal earlier than this. I have often had to put on my overcoat in the house at night in the middle of summer; I now go driving with thin trousers, and a thin cotton singlet, unbuttoned, my chest all bare, and nothing else ; I work naked some days, in a bitter cold wind driving light showers on to me; at times I take off my abbreviated pants and sit or le down on the cold wet ground and enjoy the nice cool feel of it on my bareskin. Winter hasno moreterrorsfor me. expect in another year to qualify for a trip to the South Pole, and all this is the result of two and a half months’ naked- ness.”’ The nature of the fibre of which the clothes are made is of little importance, for it is not the fibre, but the air entangled in the meshwork of the fibre, which keeps us warm by acting as an insulator. Cotton, wool, linen, silk, spun as a cellular tissue, may be all equally warm; and, if smooth and thin, equally cool. The more elastic woollen fibre does not cling to the skin when wet, as cotton does and so, entangling more air, is then warmer. Wet woollen clothes give good protection and save body heat even](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32806668_0153.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)