I WAS rather intrigued by the recent Oxford Mail Issue debate about whether muslim women should be allowed to wear total body covering.

One tends to forget that homo sapiens are tropical animals that would not, in the beginning, have worn any form of clothing, other than, perhaps, fur or feathers as a form of decoration.

In any case, it would seem very odd if an animal ever evolved to wear clothes. It’s likely that all humans living in the tropics would have been naked until the 19th century when missionaries told people that going naked wasn’t nice.

There are, no doubt, still a few tribes who do not wear dress.

The skin colour of early humans would have been dark brown or black as a filter to solar radiation, to regulate the amount of exposure and allowing the skin to produce the esential amount of vitamin D.

Problems started when humans moved into the more northern areas of the world in the search for food.

These colder areas would have a reduced level of sunlight, unless you were in mountains or areas where there was a frequent covering of snow.

The effects of this loss of sun would have been further agravated by people covering their bodies with the skins of their prey and by living in caves or huts heated by fires in an attempt to recreate, to some degree, a tropical climate.

Because of this loss of sunlight, natural selection would have sorted out those with darker skins who were suffering from vitamin D deficiency. As we know, the further north people live the lighter their skin.

A scientist recently predicted that, with time, the people of Australia would eventually become black.

On the face of it, It would seem that covering the whole body with clothes, particularly if one has a dark skin, is hardly a recipe for good health.

DERRICK HOLT, Fortnam Close, Headington, Oxford