[Sidenote: Light essential to both health and recovery.]
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. I had rather have the
power of carrying my patient about after the sun, according to the
aspect of the rooms, if circumstances permit, than let him linger in a
room when the sun is off. People think the effect is upon the spirits
only. This is by no means the case. The sun is not only a painter but a
sculptor. You admit that he does the photograph. Without going into any
scientific exposition we must admit that light has quite as real and
tangible effects upon the human body. But this is not all. Who has not
observed the purifying effect of light, and especially of direct
sunlight, upon the air of a room? Here is an observation within
everybody's experience. Go into a room where the shutters are always
shut, (in a sick room or a bedroom there should never be shutters shut),
and though the room be uninhabited, though the air has never been
polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close,
musty smell of corrupt air, of air i.e. unpurified by the effect of
the sun's rays. The mustiness of dark rooms and corners, indeed, is
proverbial. The cheerfulness of a room, the usefulness of light in
treating disease is all-important.
[Sidenote: Aspect, view, and sunlight matters of first importance to the
sick.]
A very high authority in hospital construction has said that people do
not enough consider the difference between wards and dormitories in
planning their buildings. But I go farther, and say, that healthy people
never remember the difference between _bed_-rooms and _sick_-rooms, in
making arrangements for the sick. To a sleeper in health it does not
signify what the view is from his bed. He ought never to be in it
excepting when asleep, and at night. Aspect does not very much signify
either (provided the sun reach his bed-room some time in every day, to
purify the air), because he ought never to be in his bed-room except
during the hours when there is no sun. But the case is exactly reversed
with the sick, even should they be as many hours out of their beds as
you are in yours, which probably they are not. Therefore, that they
should be able, without raising themselves or turning in bed, to see out
of window from their beds, to see sky and sun-light at least, if you can
show them nothing else, I assert to be, if not of the very first
importance for recovery, at least something very near it. And you should
therefore look to the position of the beds of your sick one of the very
first things. If they can see out of two windows instead of one, so much
the better. Again, the morning sun and the mid-day sun--the hours when
they are quite certain not to be up, are of more importance to them, if
a choice must be made, than the afternoon sun. Perhaps you can take them
out of bed in the afternoon and set them by the window, where they can
see the sun. But the best rule is, if possible, to give them direct
sun-light from the moment he rises till the moment he sets.
Another great difference between the _bed_-room and the _sick_-room is,
that the _sleeper_ has a very large balance of fresh air to begin with,
when he begins the night, if his room has been open all day as it ought
to be; the _sick_ man has not, because all day he has been breathing
the air in the same room, and dirtying it by the emanations from
himself. Far more care is therefore necessary to keep up a constant
change of air in the sick room.
It is hardly necessary to add that there are acute cases, (particularly
a few ophthalmic cases, and diseases where the eye is morbidly
sensitive), where a subdued light is necessary. But a dark north room is
inadmissible even for these. You can always moderate the light by blinds
and curtains.
Heavy, thick, dark window or bed curtains should, however, hardly ever
be used for any kind of sick in this country. A light white curtain at
the head of the bed is, in general, all that is necessary, and a green
blind to the window, to be drawn down only when necessary.
[Sidenote: Without sunlight, we degenerate body and mind.]
One of the greatest observers of human things (not physiological), says,
in another language, "Where there is sun there is thought." All
physiology goes to confirm this. Where is the shady side of deep
valleys, there is cretinism. Where are cellars and the unsunned sides of
narrow streets, there is the degeneracy and weakliness of the human
race--mind and body equally degenerating. Put the pale withering plant
and human being into the sun, and, if not too far gone, each will
recover health and spirit.
[Sidenote: Almost all patients lie with their faces to the light.]
It is a curious thing to observe how almost all patients lie with their
faces turned to the light, exactly as plants always make their faces
turned to the light; a patient will even complain that it gives him pain
"lying on that side." "Then why _do_ you lie on that side?" He does not
know,--but we do. It is because it is the side towards the window. A
fashionable physician has recently published in a government report that
he always turns his patients' faces from the light. Yes, but nature is
stronger than fashionable physicians, and depend upon it she turns the
faces back and _towards_ such light as she can get. Walk through the
wards of a hospital, remember the bed sides of private patients you have
seen, and count how many sick you ever saw lying with their faces
towards the wall.