ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 379 



a favorite rasort of English invalids, especially those afflicted with lung 

 complaints, there are more native-born persons die of consumption 

 than in any English toAvn of equal population. In Geneva this disease 

 is almost equally prevalent. In Florence pneumonia, in the Doctor's 

 words, " is marked by a suffocating character, and by a rapid progress 

 towards its last stage." Naples, whose climate is the theme of so much 

 praise by travellers, shows in her hospitals a mortality by consumption 

 equal to one in two and one-third, whereas Paris, whose climate is so 

 often pronounced villainous, the proportion is only one in three and 

 one-quarter. In Maderia no local disease is more common than con- 

 sumption. " The next position of Dr. Burgess is, that as the beasts, 

 birds, and fishes of one region die in another, a change of climate 

 cannot, unless exceptionably, be beneficial to an invalid. Notwith- 

 standing the greater adaptability to climate which man preserves, the 

 human constitution it is plain cannot endure changes of temperature 

 without being more or less affected by it. The frosts and thaws of 

 England have corroded, during the lapse of ages, the solid stone on it 

 of which their cathedrals were built. In like manner a foreign cli- 

 mate gradually undermines the health. Dr. Burgess refers to the 

 shattered constitution of every officer who has served for any length 

 of time in India ; and to the well-known fact that children born of 

 white parents in India are delicate as a class. The African, as we 

 know by the experience of its country, cannot endure severe and 

 protracted cold. Canada is the common grave as well as refuge of 

 fugitive slaves. If such is the effect of changes of climate on persons 

 in health, what must it be, argues Dr. Burgess, on invalids ? And he 

 fortifies this theoretical conclusion by reminding the reader that it is 

 not only the natives who die of consumption in Maderia, but that the 

 grave-yards of that Island are whitened by the headstones of thou- 

 sands who have gone there for health, and remained to die. 



" Persons not professional imagine that the consumptive patient, by 

 breathing a mild atmosphere, withdraws irritation and leaves nature 

 free to work a cure. But this notion Dr. Burgess characterizes as 

 entirely erroneous. It is through the skin, not through the lungs, he 

 conten'ds, that a warm climate acts beneficially. AVhen a sudden 

 change in the temperature produces a chill, cutaneous perspiration is 

 checked, the skin becomes dry and hard, and the lungs suffer from ex- 

 cessive action ; for they are compelled now to eliminate what should have 

 passed off through the skin. The Doctor illustrates this by referring 

 to the instantaneous relief which is generally obtained through free 

 perspiration, where difficult breathing or oppression of the chest have 

 been occasioned by artificial heat. What is best for consumptive pa- 

 tients, therefore, is an equable climate. It is the fluctuations, not the 

 high temperature of a climate that is injurious." 



An able article on this subject has been published in the Boston 

 Medical Journal by Dr. Burnett, of Boston, in which he attributes the 

 prevalence of consumption in the New England States to the intem- 

 perate changeable climate, the tendency of which is to produce dis- 

 ease in the pulmonery organs. The only season of the year when the 

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