MODERN IDEAS OF SANITARY ECONOMY. 



53 



him also, men become heavier and weaker during south winds, 

 and less inclined for food ; whilst, during a north wind, animals 

 have more appetite and become more robust. He shews also, 

 that south winds produce a warm moisture in bodies ; for those 

 that are warm and moist are subject to fevers. Hippocrates 

 also, in his Aphorisms^ says, that a south wind dulls the ears, 

 weakens the senses, causes headaches, looseness of the bowels, 

 and a general moist, flaccid, and languid state of the body. 

 Vitruvius also says, that the town of Mytelene, in Lesbos, was 

 magnificently and elegantly laid out, but not wisely situated; 

 when a south wind blew in it the people sickened, and when 

 an east wind blew they coughed, but when a north wind blew 

 they were restored to health. And our Pliny, who omits 

 nothing, has comprehended all about the south wind in one 

 word — " The north wind is the most wholesome of all ; the 

 south wind is bad, and animals are less liable to hunger when 

 it blows." 



More from Pliny and Albertus Magnus : — 



** Nobody doubts that the dog-star, in whose mouth is Sirius, 

 is pestilential and noxious. 



"Among the causes of pestilence, also, is filth and excess of 

 filthy substances, as lawyers * also in their writings have shown ; 

 for the filth of common sewers threatens to make the air a very 

 pestilence, and this constant stream coming from a polluted 

 source, gives out an odour not otherwise than infectious, 

 according to the best writers. 



"Among the causes of pestilence, also, I find want of food 

 and change of food, which Caesar the Dictator shews plainly 

 in his Commentaries on the Civil TFar, writing that the people 

 of Marseilles were much affected by a great pestilence, from 

 the change of food ; for when they were brought by a long 

 siege to a great scarcity of provisions, they lived on old bread 

 and bad barley. 



* " Lawyers " here refer probably to the edicts abready quoted. 



