Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-12
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRAcEWELL.

Despite the sun cult throughout the
United States, 90 out Of q hundred
street car passengers hasten to pull
down the shades by the seats In which
they sit their way around town.
This is lamentable.
The very persons who ought to leave
them up, the pale-faced. anemic ones
who lack good red corpuscles in their
blood, yank down the shades the mo-
ment they take their seats.
If some one more progressive per-
son. who understands and values sun
shine at its real worth, insists on leav-
ing his shade high, or even puts II
higher, the fearers of sunshine glare at
him ominously.
They are mistaken.
Street car and bus companies would
help their passengers to better health
and render their vehicles more sani-
tary by removing all pull-down blinds
or shades from all windows.
Especially would this be of mutua,
benefit in Summer, when windows are
up. 1t is now generally known to most
people that ordinary window glass
blocks out the ultraviolet rays of the
sun, the rays that are good for you.
In the good old Summertime fresh,
sweet air sweeps through vehicles
through opened windows, and since the
glass is up the full power of the sun
rays comes in, too.
What of a little heat? The moving
air tends to cut this down to a mini
mum, anyway. AS for the sunshine It.
self, it Is invaluable, although all too
many persons do not recognize this
simple fact.
Mental cheeriness is perhaps the
~ ho
While the ultra violet rays are no
general cure-all for grouchy DISPOSE
tons, it is incontestable that adequate
exposure Of the human cuticle to the
sunshine for requisite periods every
day tends to warm up the so-called
cookies OF the heart, mend the "blues''
and In other ways cheer up the mind.
Now If this Is so-and we assert that
1t ts-in sunshine mankind has some
thing even better than a fountain OF
youth. The greatest curse of humanity
next to sickness and death, Is the irri-
table disposition. In many instances the
obscure causes work to make such peo-
pie argumentative, nl-tempered, warped
In heart and mind.
To be happy and cheerful while one
lives Is better, one may submit, than
TO live longer and yet be grouchy, mean
and perverse. Ponce de Leon sought q
fountain from which a man might walk
In the image Of perpetual youth; mod
ern experimenters with the suns ultra
violet, in the quiet manner of modern
scientists, have found a fountain of
cheerfulnesS.
n *
Think over your list of acuuaintances
and see If the majority of the sun
tanned are not more cheerful, as o rule,
than the pale-faced men and women
you know.
There will be exceptions, of course.
Even God could not change some surly
dispositions. It may be laid down as
general proposition, however, that in
proportion as sunshine helps the physi-
cal health, it tends nightly to better
the mental health.
But this Is not all.
Through some obscure workings, per-
haps in the blood stream itself, the
ultraviolet rays do have q distinct ef-
feet on the mind and heart, entirely
distinct from the improvement of physi-
cal conditions.
1t may be that the Introduction of
the vttamin D into the blood achieves
this. 1t may be that there is some abso-
lutte connection between purity of blood
and tissue and cheerfulness of dispo-
sition. 1t may be that sunshine raises
the blood pressure slightly, at least
enough to cause that feeling Of we'll