To ask why moving to a sunny climate was the tonic to illness in days gone by?

[ArmsClary]

Have just Googled but to no avail.

I've re-read a few children's classics with DD during lockdown and on two occasions, in two separate books, an unwell parent was advised to up-sticks and move abroad as part of their recovery.

I'm sure I've come across it before on other occasions.

Was this is a common thing back then? I think both books are set in the early 1900s.

Would be interested to know the medical reasoning behind this if anyone knows the background

I should add that in both books the type of illness is never specified.

These days you can just take a vitamin d supplement.

Sunshine and vitamin D! I don't know about you, but I feel better both mentally and physically when the sun's out and my bones are warm, so I should imagine that's all it was. And very sensible too!

I believe it's negative ions, they make you feel good. Google it, it sounds wacky but I think there's truth to it.

Vitamin D, also clean air - living in damp smoggy cities early turn of the century compared to Swiss Alps fresh air had a dramatic impact on various lung / breathing conditions.

I think it was mainly to avoid damp climates, which were particularly bad for chest conditions, esp before central heating etc.

I assume being near the sea
, which was another ‘cure’, was beneficial because the air would be less polluted than in industrialised towns/cities?

For respiratory illnesses it might have been escaping from coal/wood smoke. British homes where so so smokey.

I think a lot might be due to TB affecting the chest especially and going abroad for less cold damp air.

All of the above

Sunshine, vitamin D, clean sea air or alpine air. Does wonders for mental health, lungs, healing and bone strenthening and density.

I think it was the standard medical advice to wealthy individuals who could afford to move, for the treatment of "consumption' (TB?) for which there was, then, no cure.

An ex partner was in a motorcycle crash when he was younger and found hot weather really helped him to have less pain in his back. He moved to Australia eventually. He found the cold and damp exacerbated it.

The sun is good for mental health, vitamin D. The food more varied and vitamin rich, we don't easily grow a great variety year round here. Being cold isn't good for joints or your immune system. Sunnier countries seem to have less pollution, we burnt a lot of coal to keep warm.

It wasn't common, it was only for those who were wealthy enough to afford it, which was not the majority of the population! More people would go to Bath or other spa towns to "take the waters", or maybe go to the seaside for a bit, but even then you'd be looking at the middle and not the working classes.

There is no evidence that it was effective. Although medical knowledge was improving and it was known clean air (the UK's air was very very poor in cities during the industrial revolution) and good weather could be helpful, you still wouldn't prescribe it today over medication or surgery. In all likelihood just as many people faded and died abroad as made a miraculous recovery.

It was quite often tuberculosis which was the problem, and before antibiotics there was no effective treatment. It was exacerbated by poor living conditions, particularly cold, damp and pollution. Fresh, clean air and warmth were good ways to help the body fight it.

Try Googling the origins of sanatoria - these were specialist hospitals where patients were given as much fresh air and sunlight as possible, even sleeping on verandas or outdoor sleeping sheds which could be pivoted round so they were always facing the sun.

Antibiotics rendered all this redundant.

Oops posted too soon. I know I always feel physically and mentally better after some sunny weather or a holiday somewhere warm. Whether it's just the vitamin D, or lifting of SAD, or just getting out of a cold damp drafty environment, it really does help in all sorts of ways, and must have been more so when there was less available and less clinical knowledge. The fresh air treatment for TB patients did actually work. It's fascinating really, we now medicate more, but we might be losing practical knowledge.

Especially if living in cities - then fresh clean air.

Same reason why there were open air schools for some convalescent children too I guess.

Often it was because people lived in horrendously polluted cities and moving abroad coincidentally meant moving away from toxic industrial waste, pollution, and unsanitary crowding.

There would have been a psychological effect too in that they were "doing something" - antibiotics were a long way off. Also, practically, what health services there were tended to cluster around watering places.

Vitamin D (it wasn't identified as such in those days, but we now know that sunshine helps us make vitamin D which boosts our immune system etc).
Also warmer climates were less industrialised and so had cleaner air which was beneficial for those with respiratory conditions. Also thick smog of industrial cities further blocked sunlight and back to my first point, above.

I think damp makes a difference for respiratory illnesses.

My uncle suffered so badly with asthma as a child that his parents moved to a 'higher' location. Both in rural Wales, so no issue with pollution but there was something about the new location that suited him better.

It did seem to resolve it until his 60s, when it recurred. That was post-chemo, though, so I wonder if there was something in the area that he ultimately built an immunity to which was destroyed in treatment.

Can you tell I am not a scientist .

Asthma and hay fever is often better if you're by the sea as the breeze from the sea doesn't bring any nasties in with it.

My Dad had a relative who had TB as a child and she was sent to Switzerland for a while to recover. This would have been around 1930s. Not sure you would get that prescribed on the NHS.

It used to happen as late as the 50s/early 60s...my mum and uncle (working class, living in smoggy Milan) used to get taken to the sea side by some nuns for a month or two with a bunch of other DC "for their lungs" each winter. DM loved it, my uncle didn't like it.

Well, I reckon my life would be immeasurably improved if I could go and live somewhere by the sea, in the sun. .

Ironically though I take a drug for my heart called Amnioderone, the top side effect of which is that it makes you over sensitive to the sun. But I could still move there with a bottle of factor 50