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delicate patient to contract what is termed a chill or suffer any harm as long as a
strict open-air life is led and exposure is constant.
If patients are well fed, sufficiently clothed and sheltered from the wind, any
degree of cold may be defied.
One of the greatest advantages of the open-air life is the comparative freedom
from colds which are suffered almost universally and repeatedly by those living
under the usual conditions of confined and heated rooms with greatly debilitating
effect.
The principles of Brehmer were derived from observation of the healthy and
applied to the sick for curative purposes. The opening of the open-air or forest
school in the Griinewald of Berlin in 1904 was a re-application of the principles to
the day school for preventive purposes.
With commendable promptitude the Griinewald idea was transplanted to
England by the London County Council and the Bostall Woods open-air school was
formed.
No attempt was made to modify the arrangements which had already been
worked out and the continental siesta which was part of the Griinewald regime was
included. This was the first application of the principle of organised rest into English
day schools. It has proved to be an important and necessary part of the open-air
system.
In the Council's schools the principles of Brehmer are seen carried out almost
in their entirety; life complete in the open air, the absence of heating or impeding
buildings, shelters open on all sides, abundant food, rest, organised but free exercise
and hydrotherapy. Perhaps the least developed has been hydrotherapy, although
that has by no means been altogether neglected and regular bathing occupies a
place in the curriculum.
Adapting the words of an American writer, what is received in the curriculum
of the open-air schools is unlimited rations of pure air, double rations of food, double
rations of exercise, double rations of rest and one-third rations of sedentary work.
Too often the word "school" is used when merely the word "school-building"
is meant. In the open-air school the spirit, the relation of teacher and pupils, the
activities are all important as they should be, but when visiting the site when teachers
and pupils are absent there is no "school" to see.
Since Brehmer's time there has been one new physical principle discovered and
that is the healing power of sunlight.
No doubt the success of open-air treatment has always depended to some degree
upon this, and, as the ultra-violet rays are more abundant in the high and clear
atmosphere of the heights, some light is thrown by this upon Brehmer's doctrine of
altitude.
Systematised knowledge of the value of ultra-violet rays is a product of the intense
study of nutritional problems which the war made necessary. A man was always
congratulated on his bronzed appearance when he returned from an open-air
holiday. It was thought, however, that it was a mere concomitant of his restoration
to health and there was no idea that the bronzing was a specific part of the process
of health renewal until the studies which resulted in the discovery of the part that
vitamins play in the preservation of health were carried out some 15 years ago or so.
It was then found that sunlight, or rather that ultra-violet rays, which do not
pass through ordinary glass, enable the skin to transform inert substances into
health-giving vitamin.
Although in the London atmosphere, even in the suburbs, there is insufficient
ultra-violet light to produce an effect through most of the year, every open-air
school should make arrangements to utilise this aid to health by organised sunbathing
between the middle of May and the middle of September.
The children selected for the non-tuberculous day open-air schools are those
who were called pretuberculous in the old days. The term has now gone out of
fashion, but the children are those who are unable to thrive under the confined
conditions which exist in ordinary school life, many of whom indeed fall ill immediately
they attempt to attend under usual conditions and are, in consequence, backward
through repeated or continuous absence.