Richard Hobday
Richard Hobday’s second book THE LIGHT REVOLUTION: HEALTH, ARCHITECTURE AND THE SUN (Findhorn, 2006) brings together historical evidence, traditional wisdom and the latest scientific findings to explain how to use light – especially sunlight – to promote health in the built environment.
We all need as much natural light as possible, and the best available artificial light when sunlight is insufficient or absent. Correct lighting is not only conducive to human happiness and productivity, but also essential to good health.
None of this is widely understood or simple: hence a book full of constructive information. To miss the holistic health message of this book is to lay yourself open to a host of illnesses, including depression, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, TB and falling host to MRSA.
Richard has a PhD in Engineering and has been involved in a wide range of projects concerned with sustainability and health in the built environment. His first book was THE HEALING SUN: SUNLIGHT AND HEALTH IN THE 21ST CENTURY (Findhorn, 2000).
The Light Revolution
Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: Findhorn Press Ltd. (1 Nov 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1844090876
ISBN-13: 978-1844090877
Article reproduced from www.relax-well.co.uk
"An excellent title for an excellent book - showing the way
forward for public health and wellbeing"
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
This book is just what we need to start putting right our nation’s health - safely and free of charge, meanwhile providing a few home truths for the UK’s outdated and
misguided health service. Here we have a highly readable, well-researched account
of the value of sunlight to human beings throughout the ages right up to the very
latest research evidence that may have missed the headlines. In the nicest possible
way, ‘The Light Revolution’ serves as a warning to us all – keep out of the sun at
your peril.
In this new book Richard Hobday, also author of ‘The Healing Sun’, admirably
introduces us to his expert knowledge of how ancient Egyptians and Roman city
planners made full use of their understanding of sunlight to promote good public
health and specifically to prevent ill-health. He takes us step by step, in layman’s
language but with thoroughness and a gentle sense of humour, through the more
recent historical evidence from the nineteenth century. At that time amidst the new
industrial squalor and polluted Victorian cities, scientists, writers, nurses, doctors,
philanthropists, architects and all were announcing to the world that sunlight is vital
as a disinfectant, restoring very sick patients to good health as well as
strengthening the immune system and significantly controlling our physical and
emotional wellbeing. It was common knowledge that sunlight is the best
disinfectant. In those days the great public health challenges for which sunlight
provided a ready answer were infected wounds, pain management and melancholia.
Rickets and TB were soon to be identified as preventable and treatable with solar
therapy. In 1903, a Nobel Prize for Physiology was awarded to Niels Finsen in
recognition for his success in treating TB with ultraviolet light. How is it that
nowadays sunlight doesn’t even get a mention in the official TB information for the
British public?
The real punch to this book is what has gone badly wrong in the last hundred years
or so. Whilst building technology and modern medicine have advanced
immeasurably, the necessary skills and art of harnessing the sun’s power for health
have been overlooked. Much of the painstaking research and pioneering
achievements have been “airbrushed out” of the medical books and courses in
architecture - all but forgotten. The human basic biological need for sunlight is not
only being ignored and neglected. We can ask ourselves – is it even being denied –
cavalier-style - by the government agencies and medical experts whose job it is to
protect the nation’s health?
Hobday reminds us of those well-intentioned public health campaigns advocating
sun avoidance. They could actually be having a harmful effect because sunscreens
cut out our ability to make Vitamin D by 90%. Meanwhile, we have known for half a
century that exposure to UV light reduces cholesterol levels by 13%, and also
lowers blood pressure! Has this artificially created fear of sunlight actually caused
thousands of people to die prematurely – many, many more than have died from
skin cancer?
Conversely, the author advises us that there is now enough evidence of a link
between vitamin D deficiency and the modern ills of cancer, coronary heart disease,
diabetes, obesity, depression and numerous others. He calls for health campaigns to
actively promote sunbathing, and inform the public of the best ways of doing this
safely.
Here is the historical evidence for sunlight therapy in terms of curing rickets and TB
during the pre-antibiotic era, along with plenty more evidence about sunlight’s other
general antimicrobial properties. It was reported to the Royal Society back in 1877
that sunlight kills bacteria. More recently, scientists have concluded that infection
with the influenza virus depends on variations in natural sunlight – how could that
knowledge be applied to 21st century flu infections such as SARS and bird flu
perhaps? It is emphasised, loud and clear, that a consequence of 20th century
antibiotics has been a complacent, over-relaxed attitude to infections. The dangers
nowadays are that multi-resistant superbugs cling on to the indoor airborne dust
that is basically microscopic skin cells but not noticed because of the lack of strong
beams of sunlight in our modern buildings! Thankfully, we are given a simple
example of some research dating back to 1944 when the dust in dark hospital
corners consistently contained bacteria - whereas dust on or near the windows was
consistently germ-free. Yes, in sunlight, the bacteria are destroyed and the principle
is simple enough for a child to understand.
Now at last we are provided with a wake-up call to fresh air, sunlight and
cleanliness, because the same bactericidal principle would apply whether the germs
have developed antibiotic-resistance or not. Whether the ‘contact’ theory of germ
transmission, or the ‘droplet’ theory or the ‘dust’ theory is now accepted, (or even
all three), the fact remains that multi-drug resistant infections are here to stay and
we could learn a lot from our forebears who had other methods of keeping people
healthy.
Hobday suggests that perhaps a business case could be put forward – where
healthy lighting has a value placed on it in terms of hospital running costs, including
staff illness and patient outcomes. He also offers some research topics for the
future, such as what is the healthier option – sunbeds or vitamin D supplements.
After reading this book, the public would want to know, one way or the other. He
points out the dangers of shift work and 24 hour lighting in hospitals, linked with
medication errors by staff and poor quality of sleep for patients, so there are major
opportunities for developing lighting technologies that promote safety and health.
We are provided with practical suggestions for doing a light audit, and by applying
the basic principles of building orientation, how we can work out for ourselves from
maps of our homes, workplaces and hospitals whether we are likely to be receiving
enough sunlight.
In terms of town planning and architectural design, we are treated to some superb
explanatory diagrams of how buildings should be oriented for maximum benefit
inside and outside buildings – and as an interesting contrast to the rest of the book,
there are some descriptions and drawings showing the creativity and idealism of
20th century architects who themselves were great sun-worshippers of the day, as
examples of Modernism and the new International Style. The author includes some
choice quotations that are still worth contemplating today:
for example, the great Le Corbusier from 1953:
“Doling out cosmic energy, the sun’s effects are both physical and moral, and they
have been too much neglected in recent times. The results of that need can be seen
in cemetery and sanatorium.”
How ungrateful we are, by staying in the shadows and depriving ourselves of
sunlight. We may not in this country have a legal right to sunlight, but this book,
the sequel to ‘The Healing Sun’ by the same author, is about revolution.
No doubt there will soon be more to tell, when this sorry situation is looked at in a
different light. Now we can, if we choose, take some responsibility for our own
health and act on the information we have been given in this salutary book. Also we
can calmly request that our public buildings are free of harmful pathogens for our
health and safety. The onus is on the hospital trusts and employers. Are you still
sitting comfortably? Now let’s begin the new year afresh, and let some sunlight in.
It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?
An excellent book for the new year.
Grace Filby BA (Hons.) Cert.Ed.
Reigate, Surrey
5.12.06
The Healing Sun
The Healing Sun
The Healing Sun
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