The Action of Sunlight

Abstract

IN NATURE of December 15 Sir Oliver Lodge is good enough to refer me to some experiments on the antiseptic action of sunlight which he carried out long ago in association with the late Prof. Marshall Ward. I have not yet been able to see the memoir to which Sir Oliver Lodge refers, but I believe that I am already well acquainted with it, and have been able to quote its essential findings on many occasions in connection with the demand for the abolition of the coal-smoke curse—thanks to an admirable account of Marshall Ward's methods and results, referred to the year 1892, in Sir James Crichton-Browne's “Light and Sanitation,” an address delivered in Manchester in 1902 (Sherratt and Hughes, 27 St. Ann Street, Manchester). Particularly I value the last paragraph, in which Sir Oliver Lodge praises the antiseptic and innocent quality of the sunlight just as we get it after filtration by the “unpolluted atmosphere.”