Great Britain Sanitary Institute
Published: 2017-02-15
Total Pages: 116
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Excerpt from Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute, Vol. 42: September, 1921 On the other hand the dark heat rays are absorbed by the surface Of the skin, and make this warm. The ultra-violet rays have also no power to penetrate. They are absorbed by as little as one-tenth of a millimetre of the outer horny layer of the skin. It is not then the ultra Violet rays but the luminous rays which have SO powerful an effect on health, and pigment is produced in the epidermis to absorb and ward Off the over effect of these rays on the blood circulating in the dermis. It has recently been shown by Sonne in the Finsen Light Institute that the skin can stand, without being scorched, twice as much radiant energy in the form of Visible sun-rays as it can of dark heat-rays, because the visible rays largely penetrate, and, warming the blood locally, are carried away as heat to cooler parts of the body; the dark heat rays absorbed by the surface Of the skin make us feel warm and stuffy indoors while the blood is warmed by the sun and the surface of the skin is fanned by the breeze out Of doors. We know that the Visible rays, combined with exposure to open air, acting on the blood and cutaneous tissue increase the immunising power against disease. It is madness, then, to cut Off the sun by smoke and warm ourselves in houses by dark heat waves from hot water, or steam coils, and shut-up stoves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.