Abstract
AT a time when the importance of sunlight—particularly of the ultra-violet constituent—to health is being emphasised by the medical faculty in Great Britain, perhaps it may be permitted to a layman, and climatologist, to point out that there is some need of co-ordinating the various aspects of a question which is not the same in all climates and thermal belts of the globe, A wealth of bio-climatic evidence indicates that it is possible to have too much, as well as too little, sunshine, and that there is such a thing, in the matter of sunshine as in other meteorological elements, as an optimum above which some countries rise, below which others fall, those most likely to hit the happy line lying between the 40th and 50th parallels of latitude. There is a widespread belief that in England we experience too little sunshine; but when it is considered that the climate of England takes a very high rank among the salubrious climates of the earth, it seems unlikely that the deficiency below the optimum of such a vital element as sunshine can be very serious, except, of course, in the smoke-laden industrial districts in winter, which are deprived of the allowance natural to the climate at that season.
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BONACINA, L. Sunshine and Health in Different Lands. Nature 113, 494 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113494a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113494a0
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