CLIMATE AND HEALTH. 321 



I have spoken of the Windward Islands as being especially 

 desirable during the three or four months of the so-called " dry 

 season," or from December to May, and of the whole West India 

 Islands as furnishing desirable locations for climatic rejuvena- 

 tion. The West Indies are especially interesting because commu- 

 nication is so easy and constant and relatively cheap ; they are 

 practically at our door, and it seems to me that they should be 

 studied more. The Spanish Main also furnishes a great variety 

 of especially desirable locations which can be used for the same 

 purposes ; but in speaking to the question of climate in " thera- 

 peutics" my object is not to advocate any particular point, but to 

 illustrate the general subject. 



When one has become rested by a some months' sojourn in a 

 tropical region, and, as the season advances, goes north instead of 

 sweltering in New York or other corresponding place, it would be 

 well to go to the seashore or to the mountains, where he would 

 receive another form of tonic to his already partially recuperated 

 energies. In that way we should be using the climate as an 

 essentially " therapeutic means." * 



The larger number of invalids and tired- out people will con- 

 tinue to go to Europe for their change, and undoubtedly that is 

 the better course for the majority, and, when properly managed, 

 the "therapy of climate" may be sufficiently realized in that 

 manner in most cases. I do not include those people who travel 

 for pleasure only, or where change of climate is the secondary 

 object, though in many instances even those persons do reap real 

 advantage from the considerable change in food, air, and the 

 surrounding conditions of life. There are many advantages to 

 Americans in visiting Europe, not the least of which is the 

 change of interests which new and different objects for contem- 

 plation furnish, and that fill the mind without taxing it to the 

 temporary displacement of the business, political, domestic, or 

 other cares and anxieties which are apt to hold our American 

 mind in a tenacious grip from sheer force of habit. With three 

 thousand miles of ocean behind us, it is not easy to talk "shop" 

 with the neighbor at our elbow during the ten minutes some 

 people devote to their lunch or dinner, and we are almost obliged 

 by prevailing custom to take a reasonable time at meals and 

 be quiet about it. I believe that the climate of Europe is no 

 better than ours, and in some respects not so good. I am told 

 that life-insurance statistics the most reliable of all show that 

 the life expectation is somewhat longer among American risks 



* For more detailed information in regard to the West Indian climate, I refer those 

 interested in the subject to several articles in The Times and Register, by Dr. William F. 

 Hutchinson, beginning in the number for September 6, 1890. 



