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Building an ‘A 1 Nation’: Health and Life Reform in the 1920s

Ina Zweiniger‐Bargielowska

in Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain 1880-1939

The dysgenic disaster of the First World War compounded anxieties about physical deterioration. Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer at the new Ministry of Health, advocated health education as ... More

The dysgenic disaster of the First World War compounded anxieties about physical deterioration. Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer at the new Ministry of Health, advocated health education as an essential aspect of preventive medicine. New pressure groups including the People's League of Health, the Sunlight League, and the New Health Society promoted healthy living as a duty of citizenship. They aimed to transform Britain from a C3 to an A1 nation. These military categories became a recurrent metaphor throughout the interwar years and the virtuous habits of the healthy and fit A1 citizen were juxtaposed with those of the C3 anti‐citizen whose undisciplined lifestyle was attributed to ignorance and lack of self‐control. The revival of life reform was further stimulated by the discovery of vitamins and a new interest in the healing power of sunlight. Dietary advice was not monolithic and the health benefits of wholemeal bread were contested.Less

Transparency as an Instrumental Value

David Heald

in Transparency: The Key to Better Governance?

This chapter discusses whether transparency should be valued intrinsically or instrumentally, or both. Put differently, it considers whether transparency is a core concern or a building block for ... More

This chapter discusses whether transparency should be valued intrinsically or instrumentally, or both. Put differently, it considers whether transparency is a core concern or a building block for other valued objects sought by public policy. The chapter argues that transparency should be valued instrumentally, and that attempts to elevate it to instrinsic value should be resisted. It proceeds on the basis that transparency – the sunlight metaphor – brings great benefits to economies, governments, and societies. However, there has to be sophistication about directions and varieties of transparency and also subtlety about the specific habitats within which they are situated. In general terms, at very low levels of transparency, more transparency is likely to be beneficial. The trade-offs are most apparent when transparency is already high, in which circumstance the direction and variety, not just the amount, of the incremental transparency will strongly influence the relationship between benefits and costs. The tradeoffs analysed in this chapter relate to: effectiveness; trust; accountability; autonomy and control; confidentiality, privacy and anonymity; fairness; and legitimacy.Less

The Past Is a Present Country: Model Towns and Commercial Utopias

Elizabeth Outka

in Consuming Traditions: Modernity, Modernism, and the Commodified Authentic

This chapter explores the revolutions in town planning and community design that were inspired by the creation of model factory towns at the turn of the century, as well as by the rapid development ... More

This chapter explores the revolutions in town planning and community design that were inspired by the creation of model factory towns at the turn of the century, as well as by the rapid development of the Garden City Movement. While novel in many respects, model towns such as Bournville and Port Sunlight, and Garden Cities such as Letchworth, presented the illusion of an older economic and cultural time, showing a commitment to past designs that were meant to correct some of the excesses of the industrial age. What set these places apart from earlier efforts was their deliberate reliance on the modern factory system to support the nostalgic country vision, and the emerging ways this vision was marketed as a way to sell products from chocolate to soap. Such efforts received enormous publicity and captured the imagination of many, including Bernard Shaw. In his plays John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara, Shaw became the most incisive critic of the new town planning schemes, but also, in ways the chapter examines, their surprising champion. Through analysis of both the literary and the literal model towns, the chapter investigates how long-static visions of the country and the city were united into appealing new hybrids, and industry itself, rather than being the villain, was recast as the provider of new pleasures.Less

Afterword: ‘“I have not finished”’

Jeffrey Wainwright

in Acceptable Words: Essays on the Poetry of Geoffrey Hill

Looking at the closing passage of ‘Discourse: For Stanley Rosen’, this chapter dwells on the penultimate line: ‘its bleak littoral swept by bursts of sunlight’. The littoral has held a powerful place ... More

Looking at the closing passage of ‘Discourse: For Stanley Rosen’, this chapter dwells on the penultimate line: ‘its bleak littoral swept by bursts of sunlight’. The littoral has held a powerful place in Geoffrey Hill's poetic imagination right from the beginning. In ‘Discourse: For Stanley Rosen’, littoral and sunlight work as a metaphor for ‘well dug-in language’ itself. All of Hill's work in the tilth of language knows that metaphor is but one instance of its approximate nature, that it ‘pitches us as it finds’. But his wintry, hedged, clouded, ‘rare pale’ sunlights might sometimes pitch him, and so his readers, beyond labouring.Less

Vampire Rules: You Have to Invite Me in.

Anne Billson

in Let the Right One In

This chapter probes the public fascination with vampires caused by the panoply of rules and rituals that have arisen around them, such as drinking blood, casting no reflection, or turning into other ... More

This chapter probes the public fascination with vampires caused by the panoply of rules and rituals that have arisen around them, such as drinking blood, casting no reflection, or turning into other creatures. It demonstrates how vampire films and novels often ring changes on the rules and rituals, but still pay lip-service to some or all of them to some degree. It also describes Eli in Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In, whose condition of drinking blood and avoiding sunlight to survive is explained by a non-supernatural medical condition, such as porphyria. The chapter reviews one of the key scenes in Let the Right One In when Oskar asks Eli what would happen if she came into his flat without an invitation, and she proceeds to show him. It explains the vampire's need for an invitation as an invention of Bram Stoker.Less

Protecting the Skin

Dom Colbert

in MCQs in Travel Medicine

Dermatosis is one of the top four problems that affect travellers. Sunburn is high on the list, especially, but not exclusively, in those who travel to sun resorts. Occasionally medicationrelated ... More

Dermatosis is one of the top four problems that affect travellers. Sunburn is high on the list, especially, but not exclusively, in those who travel to sun resorts. Occasionally medicationrelated photosensitivity dermatitis occurs and travellers should be warned to immediately stop taking the suspected allergen when this occurs. For example, should photosensitivity occur when taking doxycycline, a failure to stop the drug immediately together with persistent exposure to the sun can result in a serious exfoliative dermatitis that may need hospitalization. Apart from those dermatoses that are found in temperate climates, there are a number of tropical and parasitic-related skin conditions with which the travel medicine practitioner should be familiar. Less

Objective images of time

George Jaroszkiewicz

in Images of Time: Mind, Science, Reality

This chapter discusses the physical factors that contribute to our conventional view of time. This includes the role of sunlight and how it helps create the visual appearance of the world around us. ... More

This chapter discusses the physical factors that contribute to our conventional view of time. This includes the role of sunlight and how it helps create the visual appearance of the world around us. Factors discussed are the relatively enormous speed of light, the intensity of daylight as it is experienced on the Earth, and the optical and thermodynamical properties of objects that respond to this light. The chapter points out how the physical properties of light contributes to the mental images that we construct of the world around us. The relationship of the observer to the observed object is discussed in terms of laboratory time, the observer chorus, synchronization protocols, and the concept of superobservers.Less

Patterns of Darkness: Chthonic Illusion, Gigantomachy, and Sacrificial Ritual in the Punica

R. Joy Littlewood

in Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic

This chapter analyses the significance of Silius’ allusion to Virgil’s aetiological narrative of the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima with its underlying civic ideology. While Hercules’ ... More

This chapter analyses the significance of Silius’ allusion to Virgil’s aetiological narrative of the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima with its underlying civic ideology. While Hercules’ monster–slaying and katabasis provide a metaphor to accentuate the moral fortitude of his descendant Fabius Maximus in Punica 7, the disparity of Roman with Carthaginian is poetically underlined by dualistic imagery of sunlight and darkness. This chapter demonstrates how the political metaphor of gigantomachy illustrates Hannibal's arrogance and impiety, while the Carthaginians’ notorious cult of chthonic powers invites the interpretation of Hannibal’s nocturnal conflagration of Roman oxen as a monstrous subversion of the Roman ritual victory sacrifice to Capitoline Jupiter.Less

Introduction Toward a History of Natural Light

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This book describes modern American analogues to Akhenaten, Vitruvius, and Linnaeus, who worshipped the sun, attempted to restyle the home for brightness, and advocated a nature for man in which ... More

This book describes modern American analogues to Akhenaten, Vitruvius, and Linnaeus, who worshipped the sun, attempted to restyle the home for brightness, and advocated a nature for man in which daylight figured prominently. It ranges from Progressive reform to the histories of the city, the environment, medicine, science, nudism, vacationing, and parenting. The chapter also breaks through geographic boundaries. Sunlight was really a necessity, little different from fresh air or clean water. The history that is presented in the book travels into America's slum alleys, medical wards, and Hollywood movies, and also examines miracle lamps designed to renovate the light of tranquil meadows, rendering comprehensible the begoggled chimpanzees lying under them. This Introduction provides an overview of the chapters that follow.Less

The Darkening City, 1850–1920

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This chapter describes the reformers in New York city. The perception that darkness was a problem in the maintenance of morals, health, and property values was growing. Blackened skies had begun ... More

This chapter describes the reformers in New York city. The perception that darkness was a problem in the maintenance of morals, health, and property values was growing. Blackened skies had begun capturing reformers' attention, but many still saw pollution as an indicator of progress, evidence that the nation was an industrial powerhouse. Tenement reformers utilized a new language in expressing compelling concerns about slum conditions. Sunlight was a clear concern for urban Americans. Businessmen had decided that sunshine was worth paying for, and natural light now came at a premium. In general, social reforms prevailed in the early sunlight thinking by undoing the slum, redesigning the school, and reshaping the city. By the 1930s, securing sunlight had become the responsibility of the individual, and scientists, not planners, were providing the necessary tools.Less

The Dawn of Scientific Sunlight

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This chapter addresses the new knowledge of sunlight. Two main discoveries—rickets and the significance of ultraviolet light—changed discussions about sunlight's uses. The new knowledge of sunlight ... More

This chapter addresses the new knowledge of sunlight. Two main discoveries—rickets and the significance of ultraviolet light—changed discussions about sunlight's uses. The new knowledge of sunlight covered a brighter future in which technology brought salvation. The relative scarcity of sunlight was a major problem. Rickets, which offered cues to one of the great curiosities of sunlight therapy, remained the unquestioned king of the diseases of darkness; it was also the only one that sunlight treated fully and perfectly. Sunshine was a newly (re)discovered health agent and one that pitchmen enthusiastically sold. Technology would restore natural bright light and good health to every American. It can be stated that the techniques employed to make the sick healthy and the rest robust varied, but all experts counseled that they had to be precise and based on sound, scientific principles.Less

Popular Enthusiasms: Eugenists, Nudists, Builders, Modern Mothers, and the Sun Cult

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This chapter reports how the news that sunlight was important to welfare brought all sorts of Americans together in a quest for health. The battle against darkness was not simply a campaign for a ... More

This chapter reports how the news that sunlight was important to welfare brought all sorts of Americans together in a quest for health. The battle against darkness was not simply a campaign for a well America. Darkness was a troubling problem for a truly modern nation, and specifically was a critical danger. But it would help identify the fate of the nation. Sun therapy could develop a stronger people, and the United States could become a country of relative weaklings. It is observed that Federal Housing Administration's commitment to sunlight saw social benefits in sunlight. Nudism sold a new mode of living, rejecting modern as artificial and hoping followers would turn themselves over to a more natural way of life. Sunshine had become an expensive commodity, just the sort of inequity that tenement reformers had argued against.Less

Climate Tourism and Its Alternative

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This chapter describes the long-term solution of climate tourism. By the middle of the 1930s, most people had concluded that time in the sun brought health and happiness, and the tan was a marker of ... More

This chapter describes the long-term solution of climate tourism. By the middle of the 1930s, most people had concluded that time in the sun brought health and happiness, and the tan was a marker of vitality. Climate tourism drew ailing easterners in search of health. The association of sun with energy was settled, and as long as that was the case, tans were good, and beaches were places to go for a vacation. Sunlight was important in childhood for preventing irritability and malformed bones, and had emerged as fully saleable, with businessmen advertising their products as sunshine-rich. Americans were aware about the fortification, thus companies that made dietary supplements redirected their advertising focus, relying on more scientifically sophisticated assessments of sunlight and vitamin D.Less

Epilogue Sunlight into the Twenty-First Century

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

Sunshine requirements took a new sense of urgency by the 1920s, and expert scientists and doctors asserted a role in light therapy. By 1930, the tan was in, and not just as a result of changing ... More

Sunshine requirements took a new sense of urgency by the 1920s, and expert scientists and doctors asserted a role in light therapy. By 1930, the tan was in, and not just as a result of changing tastes. By 1960, ultraviolet light began to be considered as more of a hazard than a help. It is shown that public education campaigns have been efficient at communicating the danger of sunlight and skin cancer. Ultraviolet radiation became far more of a health threat in the last quarter of the twentieth century than it had been in the first three. The story of American sunlight is one of powerful new fears, of remarkable technological mastery, of created commodities, and of hypernatural but limited solutions to environmental hazards. Briefly, it is the story of modernity's promise and its danger.Less

More Like a Waterfall

William Day

in Chimeras and Consciousness: Evolution of the Sensory Self

This chapter reviews bacteria in terms of non-living growth processes of chemicals energized mainly by sunlight. It combines well-established chemical specifics with a metabolic overview. It ... More

This chapter reviews bacteria in terms of non-living growth processes of chemicals energized mainly by sunlight. It combines well-established chemical specifics with a metabolic overview. It demonstrates that the entire growth phenomenon appeared simultaneously, with the earliest life. It argues that light induced the emergence of the cell’s constituent systems and stabilized its dynamic states. This chapter shows that the phosphoenolpyruvate and 1,3-diphosphoglycerate are generated by the energy-growth core to activate compounds for spontaneous reactions. It proposes that the initial synthesis of the entire “energy-growth core” was the single process that has been in continuous existence. It also suggests that life continues incessantly to grow.Less

Energy Enters the Biosphere

E. C. Pielou

in The Energy of Nature

Green plants are the factories that capture energy from sunlight in a series of chemical reactions collectively known as photosynthesis; the green pigment chlorophyll always takes part in the ... More

Green plants are the factories that capture energy from sunlight in a series of chemical reactions collectively known as photosynthesis; the green pigment chlorophyll always takes part in the reactions. The amount of usable energy reaching vegetation from the sun is difficult to measure directly because the rate at which it arrives is forever changing: it is most easily estimated by measuring the rate at which plants grow, known as their productivity. This chapter discusses the following: ecological productivity; primary productivity of the oceans; and the transfer of energy to the food chains.Less

Further Travels of Energy in the Biosphere

E. C. Pielou

in The Energy of Nature

Chapter 11 showed that nearly 2 billion (2 × 1018) kJ of solar energy are captured each year by photosynthesizing plants. What becomes of all the captured energy? Some of it travels from plants to ... More

Chapter 11 showed that nearly 2 billion (2 × 1018) kJ of solar energy are captured each year by photosynthesizing plants. What becomes of all the captured energy? Some of it travels from plants to herbivores and on to carnivores, up a number of familiar food chains, and is partly dissipated by respiration at each level. But what happens to the rest — the energy still unused when the animals at any level of a food chain die? The bulk of the captured energy, in any case, never gets beyond the lowest level of a food chain: enormous quantities of vegetation die without being eaten. Where, then, does all the energy in the dead vegetation go? The answer to both questions is the same: the energy trapped in dead organisms is ultimately released by decay or by burning. The quantity of energy liberated when organic matter is destroyed is always exactly equal to the quantity of solar energy used to create it. This is true irrespective of whether combustion or decomposition brings about the disintegration. This chapter discusses the following: detritus food chains; energy without sunlight; and rocks built by sunlight.Less

How Energy is Used

E. C. Pielou

in The Energy of Nature

Every living thing depends on a source of energy outside itself to keep it living and reproducing. Sunlight provides the energy for green plants; animals use the chemical energy in their food. For ... More

Every living thing depends on a source of energy outside itself to keep it living and reproducing. Sunlight provides the energy for green plants; animals use the chemical energy in their food. For all nonhuman animals, food and sunshine are the only sources of energy. This chapter gives a brief overview of the multitude of energy sources tapped by humans and of some of the ways “raw” natural energy is converted for human use. It covers combustible fuels; wind energy; the energy in moving water; solar energy; and geothermal and nuclear energy.Less

The Sun, the Wind, and the Sea

E. C. Pielou

in The Energy of Nature

When sunlight shines on the sea, some of it is reflected back into the sky, and the rest penetrates the surface to contribute its energy to the water; in a word, it is absorbed. This statement ... More

When sunlight shines on the sea, some of it is reflected back into the sky, and the rest penetrates the surface to contribute its energy to the water; in a word, it is absorbed. This statement prompts two questions. What are the proportions reflected and absorbed? And what becomes of the absorbed energy? This chapter discusses the following: how sunlight penetrates the sea; movement in the sea; wind-driven currents and the Ekman spirals; hills and dales of the ocean's surface; density currents in the depths; and the global energy conveyor.Less