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

Antibiotics weren't used commercially until 1930s

Tubercosis & other breathing illnesses, eased by mountain or seaside fresh air

Arthritis is eased by a warmer climate

In these books there is always an element of mental health in it,,Ie mild depression ,anxiety etc, where the poor unwell person will spend some time in the sunshine and miraculously recover. To be fair, a change of scene, getting out of the situation that bothers you, and sunshine can be a mood enhancer, and I guess anti depressents , beta blockers etc didn’t exist.

In England it was because of pollution. Industrialisation meant that towns and cities especially in the north were highly polluted, you can still see the black staining from soot on buildings in many cities. So people were sent to the seaside when sick where the air was cleaner. I think wealthier people went to European places.

I was born in the mid-50s (London)and the last time of regular pea-souper smogs. They were filthy, dense things and the cause or exacerbators of horrible chest conditions. The actual fog was yellowish and we had to wear our scarves wrapped round our noses and mouths to try to filter what we were breathing in. It seems very sensible that invalids, especially with TB, etc, were sent to the country or mountains to aid recovery. Once we got the Clean Air Act, smokeless fuel and cleaner car engines there was a seemingly miraculous change in air quality.

I take it you don't live in the UK or anywhere else where the weather can be cold, wet, damp and miserable a lot of the time, and especially any time you plan any sort of outside event that is great in good weather and a disaster in bad weather?

Huge boost to mental health, able to sit outside in the sun or go for gentle walks, vitamin D production etc etc. Does most people a world of good.

Shit weather and long dark winters probably goes a long way towards explaining why heavy drinking and alcohol problems are far more prevalent in northern European countries than around the Mediterranean.

The sun and warmth always make me feel better. Apart from vitamin D the cold damp weather gets in your bones and the dry heat can make you feel physically better especially if you have arthritus. People can also suffer from seasonal affect disorder when there are fewer hours of sun light. At that time though it was probably just seem as a tonic.

Even as recently as the mid-80s, my parents were dealing with my brother who had pectoralis excavatum and chronic bronchitis and pneumonia - after many tests for everything under the sun including cystic fibrosis, and nebulisers multiple times a day (I remember the glass vials they came in and you had to break off the pointy end and pour it into the machine and he would sit for ages with the mask on his face as my parents read to him) the doctors admitted they had no other ideas other than to move from our cold dry central-heating in winter city to a hot humid climate to help his chest. My parents moved with the intention of trying it out for 5 months and he immediately saw improvement so we stayed for almost 15 years.

All the above, plus the belief back then that wet weather caused people to catch colds, AND the fact that wet weather can exaggerate rheumatism and arthritis as well as lung conditions.

When I was still teaching, there was a move towards getting children back outdoors as much as possible. We tried it in KS1. Rain or shine, out we'd go every morning. I and my arthritis hated it, but it was the first winter in years that I didn't end up with a horrible cold or chest infection.

My nan (early 1900s baby) swore by sea air for all ailments. Salt is seen as therapeutic and healing
And hot weather for rheumatic aches and pains; I don't know why, but my joint pains disappear in the Summer. I think it's partly to do with impact on your mood, as SAD is a recognised thing (and weirdly, my joint pains also cleared up when prescribed light anti-anxiety meds). No clue why it works though!!

It hasn't completely gone away as a remedy. My ex MIL has terrible lung problems (I forget the name of her condition) and was advised to move out of London in the hope she would improve. She lives in the Cotswolds now and is a lot better as a result.

I should add this was about 10 years ago.

There is something in the salty sea air... they had a whole floor in the salt mines in Poland set up for respiratory ailments.
In my childhood town, was a “sea bathing” hospital, right on the shore, for TB patients and those with other respiratory illnesses.

Also, apart from smog and industrial fog outdoors in cities, houses were often damp and heated by coal fires.

My mum (child in 1950s) had severe asthma and allergies. No treatments then (or at least, nothing other than the District Nurse popping in daily with an injection of antibiotics when it turned to pneumonia), just sit propped up in bed and endure it until you could breathe easily again. She was much better on the coast (still is, though she’s now got modern asthma drugs and is well controlled) and she puts it down to fewer allergens and less pollution.

In my childhood town, was a “sea bathing” hospital, right on the shore, for TB patients and those with other respiratory illnesses.

Unless there was more than one, I know where you mean!

There used to be convalescent homes for children around that bit of coast too. We used to see the children on the beach when we were there on holiday.

In older fiction, the recommendation to go and live in the mountains somewhere was nearly always because the patient was threatened with TB. Readers at the time would have understood that.

Am I the only one to have immediately thought of the Chalet School series on reading the OP? ArmsClary, have you and DD read them? If you haven't, it's worth trying to read the early ones in order.

And in book plotting terms it is a useful device to get the parents out of the way so the children can have adventures unimpeded, with a ready made emotional climax at the end when they are reunited. Victorian and Edwardian writers tended to be quite sentimental about motherhood, which helped.

In Germany you can still get prescribed a "Kur" which is a stay in a sort of wellness hotel often in the mountains or near the sea depending on what ails you. A friend of mine took her daughter, who has asthma, to the North Sea coast for a fortnight on one of these. If your doctor prescribes it, your health insurance will pay for it.

London 1952 - note that this is daytime when the pea-soup smog pollution was bad. Other UK and European cities were similarly heavily polluted from factories and coal fires - there were not really many cars around then. The conditions inside some of the factories were hardly much better - dust, noise and fibres replacing the toxic smoke. Although this is 1952, air pollution had been bad for over half a century. To top it all, most men at this time smoked as it was considered healthy and manly.

Overwhelmingly for consumption (TB) or fear of consumption I think. I have older relations who were sent to open-air schools. The history is fascinating.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_air_school
If you were rich you went to Switzerland.
The Chalet School books often talk about "delicate" children who need to be treated in the sanitorium.
Consumption was often talked about in my childhood. People were still traumatised by the fear of it. I never heard vitamin D mentioned.

Sun and being outside is good for skin conditions like excema or psoriasis.

.... sanatorium. Crossed post @UserEleventyNine 😊

I was just going to say about the Kur in Germany as well there are many traditional spa towns here (I live in one) they have the prefix 'Bad' and have to meet criteria including a certain quality of air. It's a common thing here to be prescribed a Kur after a long or intense illness, accident, heart attack...all sort of things. These towns have lots of hotels that take Kur guests and have medical staff and facilities, lots of parks, often near the sea or lakes.

Vitamin D of course, the sun is a wonder drug (in small doses anyway!). Most people feel happier when the sun is shining outside, it’s probably why Brits are so miserable .

Crossed post @UserEleventyNine** 😊

I was surprised it took until Page 2 for anyone to mention the CS!

My best friend got sent to visit the salt mines in Romania when she was a child in the late 80s-early 90s to help with lung problems. Their health system was in tatters so they were desperately trying anything that would help and the dry air in the mines was considered beneficial.