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In the interwar period, western health experts considered ultraviolet light a powerful means for stimulating the population. In Germany, the electrical industry started to sell sunlamps for daily use, while hygienists and the spokesmen of the health reform movement celebrated the health effects of “light showers” in the popular press. Based on a careful reading of a wide variety of scientific and popular texts, the book maps the functions of sunlight in western medicine and culture. It studies the history of light and heliotherapy in medicine and investigates the transition of medical practices towards a marketed consumer product. The book argues that the electrification of light therapy shaped a new rationale for the application of light on the human body in medicine and beyond at the start of the 20th century.

Ultraviolet radiation --- Electrotherapeutics. --- Phototherapy. --- Therapeutic use. --- Physiological effect. --- Actinotherapy --- Finsen rays --- Finsen therapy --- Light --- Light therapy --- Physical therapy --- Therapeutics, Physiological --- Thermotherapy --- Radiotherapy --- Electrotherapy --- Faradization --- Electricity in medicine --- Electrostatics --- Neural stimulation --- Black light --- Light, Black --- Light, Ultraviolet --- Rays, Ultraviolet --- U-V light --- U-V radiation --- U-V rays --- Ultra-violet radiation --- Ultra-violet rays --- Ultraviolet light --- Ultraviolet rays --- UV light --- UV radiation --- UV rays --- Radiation --- Therapeutic use --- Physiological effect --- sunlight in western medicine --- sunlamps --- heliotherapy --- Haut --- Höhensonne --- Medizin --- Strahlentherapie --- Ultraviolettstrahlung