14/04/2020
ARE YOU WELL? Another SUNLIT morning at the beach. I am staying well.
Wisdom can be gleaned from our ancestors in medicine and may be of some guidance. Training as a physiotherapist I was required to do internships at hospitals in regional Australia. There was one particular hospital I remember fondly because of its veranda. Originally architectured in1888, and rebuilt in 1949, it remained relatively unchanged since. I took up internship there in 1993.The wisdom of the medicine in that day meant that the hospital had been built with large glass opening doors, from the ward rooms to veranda. The patients were wheeled in their beds or on what looked like reclining deck chairs out on to the adjoining veranda for at least 30 minutes a day. This practice was to some degree still in place when I appeared in 1993. It felt like I was on holiday (well almost), treating patients at a resort. Open wounds, drips, plaster casts and other medical interventions along with a country view and the sun. The mood was decidedly upbeat. A stark contrast to the long grey corridors of the mighty inner city hospitals with thousands of beds in air conditioned environs. The sun, with its proven germicidal and antibacterial properties, not to mention its mental health benefits, was the medicine. But the question that arises today, is it antiviral?
Well, Dr Richard Hobjay, researcher and international writer has made a connection between the sun and health during the Influenza pandemic of 1918 in the United States. Here influenza patients recovered better and had less losses, and lower staff infections in 'open-air' hospitals. And further, outbreaks were more severe in crowded, poorly ventilated conditions, particularly in military settings. The message seems clear (without getting into a discussion on the health effects of love and war here). Putting it simply, stand in the sun (or run or walk or skip or dance), the evidence is rolling in, starting long ago.
The country hospital where I trained has now been modernised; there is no access to, or indeed any veranda at all. The sun has made its exit as a modality from hospital medicine.
Upright Physiotherapy offers open air treatments, please go to https://www.uprightphysio.com/special-services for information. But please note group sessions are no longer taking place.
Photo Credits
2020 The morning sun at Peregian Beach, J. Hampson
1918 An 'open air' Hospital in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, National Archive
Hobday RA and Cason JW. The open-air treatment of pandemic influenza. Am J Public Health 2009;99 Suppl 2:S236–42. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.134627.
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