92 Curative Influence of the 



a healthy and restorative atmosphere, is evident, from a considera- 

 tion of the deleterious effects of one without it ; for air, destitute of 

 moisture, cannot be breathed with ease or impunity, whether it be 

 warm or cold; when any degree of irritability exists within the 

 Iun£^s, such an air generally becomes insupportable, and when 

 united with much heat, is to all, productive of great oppression and 

 uneasiness, as is experienced by those whose occupations expose 

 them to its influence; while, on the contrary, if humidity be added 

 to it, such impressions are speedily removed. It is, therefore, a 

 common practice among such as are exposed to air greatly heated, 

 by means of stoves, to have recourse to steaming the apartments. 



" From such considerations then, may be I think deduced, the 

 superior advantages which are afforded in many diseases, by a sea 

 atmosphere, little subject to these extremes, advantages arising, not 

 more from the absence of the irritation they occasion to the lungs, 

 than from its heahhful influence on the exhalents of the external 

 surface of the body ; on which it tends to constantly keep up a 

 gentle action, while it does not too rapidly deprive them of their 

 fluids, or the body of its heat. 



*' The salutary and invigorating qualities, however, of sea air, 

 which have been so long experienced and acknowledged, have led 

 to the idea, that other causes have an important share in the pro- 

 duction of its peculiar effects ; and thus they have been assigned to 

 a difference in its chemical composition, from that of the land, while 

 other authors, as Dr. T. Reid, have been contented to regard it as 

 * the most pure and healthful we possess,' without allusion to the 

 causes which impart its salubrity. It is well known, however, that 

 saline particles are wafted by it to considerable distances, and M. 

 Vogel, of Munich, has shewn inapaper, published in the JowrwaZc^e 

 Pharmacie, No. 11, for Nov. 1823, that the sea air of our channel, 

 holds in chemical combination, a portion of those muriates over 

 which it is wafted, and a less proportion of carbonic acid than that 

 of the continent of Europe. 



'* One quality of vast importance to its salubrity, is, doubtless, 

 its constant agitation ; by this means it affords to us, at each inspi- 

 ration, a regular supply for our demands, pure and uncontaminated 

 by noxious effluvia." 



The next thirty or forty pages relate to the effects of warm 

 and cold sea bathing on the constitution, and the circum- 

 stances which render it inadmissible. 



Dr. Harwood then proceeds to take a comprehensive view 

 of those maladies in which he conceives the operation of coast 

 advantages to be most important, viz., various diseases of the 

 chest, as consumption, winter cough, and asthma, indigestion, 

 acute and chronic rheumatism, gout, the effects of loss of 

 blood, and of other debilitating causes, and of mercurial me- 

 dicines, diseases of the liver, scrophula, and many disorders 

 incident to children. 



