"Get some sun" the Doctor Ordered

Doctors throughout history have expressed profound beliefs in the healing power of the sun's rays, often referring to them in powerful and sometimes poetic terms. Here are some notable quotes from physicians about the sun's healing properties:

• In 1889, a Cannes physician, Dr. J. Orgeas, eloquently stated: “Just as the sun is the principal of all life, so it is the source of all healing. It is the Sun, and uniquely the Sun, that sick people seek in winter on our coast. It is the Great Doctor, Doctor of the Faculty of the Sky, to whom the suffering come to demand a cure for their ills.”

• John Harvey Kellogg, in his 1897 book Hygiène populaire et moniteur de la santé, asserted that the sun is “the most powerful of all natural antiseptics; no morbid germ can resist the direct rays of the sun, cholera, consumption [tuberculosis], diphtheria, scarlet fever and typhoid fever, and other diseases.” He further described the sun's "magic influence" in his 1910 Light Therapeutics, stating that "Under the magic influence of these miracle-working rays, the elements found in earth, air and water are organized into molecular groups". Kellogg also noted in 1910 that the "deep study of the sun’s rays... has thrown a great flood of light upon this subject which is of precious value to clinicians".

• In 1894, Dr. E. Onimus detailed the multifaceted benefits, stating: “Light, while killing infectious germs, dries the wound, excites tissue circulation, increases hemoglobin, promotes endosmotic exchanges, and consequently the formation of normal cells.”

• Dr. Gilli, in 1904, highlighted the penetrating effects of light, saying: "The blood, it is true, absorbs a large part of the violet rays, but the chemistry of light is not entirely exhausted by its contact, and its stimulating and bactericidal properties have a more extended zone of penetration."

• Florence Nightingale, in her 1859 Notes on Nursing, emphasized the fundamental need for light: "It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick, that second only to their need of fresh air is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room. And that it is not only light but direct sun- light they want… The sun is not only a painter but a sculptor. You admit that he does the photograph. Without going into any scientific exposition we much admit that light has quite as real and tangible effects upon the human body.”

• Dr. Albert Monteuuis, a heliotherapist in the French Riviera, famously declared: “The regenerating action of the sun is so profound that it produces (the word is not exaggerated) actual resurrections.” He also conceptualized sunlight as "solar nutrition".

• In 1926, Edward J. Deck reflected on the potential of sunlight for health: "May we not, in a more prosaic and material spirit, harness our bodies to the Sun?” He also described the sun's role in vitalizing food, stating, "It is the action of the Sun which causes the chemical changes that supply the nourishing properties of food...".

• Dr. Niels Finsen from the Faroe Islands, considered the father of modern heliotherapy, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1903 for his "contribution to the treatment of diseases, especially lupus vulgaris, with concentrated light radiation, whereby he has opened a new avenue for medical science". He considered the "injurious" character of actinic light to be "the very foundation of our subject," referring to its destructive power against bacteria.

• Dr. Auguste Rollier, a prominent heliotherapist in the Swiss Alps, believed in holistic body treatment and encouraged patients to play outdoors in the sunshine. He noted that “Those bronzed bodies of our children, those temples with esthetical lines, only will realise beauty and harmony when they are brightened by the qualities of heart and intelligence.” He also posited that "light absorbed by blood changes it into a receptacle of radiant energy".

• Sir John Henry Gauvain, in a preface to Rollier's 1923 publication Heliotherapy, expressed a fundamental human connection to sunlight: "In all ages there have been Sun-worshippers. It could not be otherwise. Ter-restrial life craves for the golden rays."

• Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, active since 1876, stated that the physiological and therapeutic actions of sunlight had received "too scanty recognition" and that careful study would lead to "valuable results".

• Sidney Russ, in a 1928 radio broadcast, emphasized the vital role of sunlight for children: “it is no exaggeration to say that the children are literally nourished by sunlight.”

• Leonard Hill, in 1925, described the broad therapeutic spectrum of ultraviolet radiation: "Ultra- violet radiation puts up the general resistance of the body to disease, and promotes good health and sexual power of citizens who by sedentary indoor lives during the winter have become depressed and out of condition […] Marasmic and delicate children may be made better, and mothers who cannot nurse their babies may be made more efficient. The general [carbon] arc bath affords a natural, simple, and valuable stimulant of the health functions of the body."

• Victor Dane, a naturopath, in his 1929 book _The Sunlight Cure_, explained the concept of stored solar energy: "Pigmentation is a sign that solar energy has been transformed into human energy. The rays of the sun are very powerful germicides. As the skin imbibes more of these rays, it stores up a great deal of this germ- killing energy… After that, health will come by leaps and bounds."

• Dr. L. C. Donnelly, in 1925, highlighted the necessity of ultraviolet light during pregnancy to prevent birth defects and bolster a child's resistance: "If there is a marked ultra- violet light deficiency [during pregnancy] the child will be malformed; great deficiency could produce a monster. If the mother has plenty of ultra- violet light the child starts life with a stored up amount of the products of light and is able to better resist disease."

• Dr. Oskar Bernhard summarized the strengthening and protective effects of the sun, noting that "Air and sun had not only strengthened the body and provided it with weapons for a victorious fight with the infecting organism, but in this victory had armed it with immune bodies for future protection."