To celebrate the International Year of Light, a new exhibition at the Florence Nightingale Museum will look at the contentious history of light therapy.

 The Kiss of Light: Nursing and Light Therapy in 20^th-century Britain opens on Florence’s birthday on May 12^th 2015 and centres on the healing powers of light – and its risks. Funded by the Wellcome Trust and co-organised with University of Warwick medical historians Tania Woloshyn and Hilary Marland, the exhibition showcases a remarkable photographic record of nurses and their vulnerable patients being exposed to both natural and artificial light. Light therapy was especially used for children to combat tuberculosis and rickets in clinics and sanatoria and even in the home by mothers eager to protect their child by exposing them to rays from trendy portable ultra-violet lamps. We may have very different ideas now towards light safety but the health and protection of our children remains an issue today.

Website: www.florence-nightingale.co.uk