
Soaking Up the Rays: Light Therapy and Visual Culture in Britain, c. 1890-1940 (Hardback)
Tania Anne Woloshyn (author)- We can order this from the publisher
There is an Open Access edition of this book with a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Soaking up the rays forges a new path for exploring Britain's fickle love of the light by investigating the beginnings of light therapy in the country from c. 1890-1940. Despite rapidly becoming a leading treatment for tuberculosis, rickets and other infections and skin diseases, light therapy was a contentious medical practice. Bodily exposure to light, whether for therapeutic or aesthetic ends, persists as a contested subject to this day: recommended to counter skin conditions as well as Seasonal Affective Disorder and depression; closely linked to notions of beauty, happiness and well-being, fuelling tourism abroad and the tanning industry at home; and yet with repeated health warnings that it is a dangerous carcinogen.
By analysing archival photographs, illustrated medical texts, advertisements, lamps, and goggles and their visual representation of how light acted upon the body, Woloshyn assesses their complicated contribution to the founding of light therapy.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9781784995126
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Soaking up the Rays displays a reflective methodology and meticulously detailed approach to analysing visual cultures. Woloshyn's transferable toolkit can be both studied and applied by researchers to evaluate their own contentious histories and complex layers of visual representation.'
Fabiola Creed, University of Warwick, Social History of Medicine, Volume 32, Issue 2, May 2019
You may also be interested in...
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
Click & Collect
Alternatively, for multiple items you may find it easier to add to basket, then pay online and collect in as little as 2 hours, subject to availability.