STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 439 



CLIMATE AND HEALTH RESORTS OF CALIFORNIA. 



By J. W. Robertson, A.B., M.D., Assistant Physician and Pathologist, Napa, California, 



Insane Asylum. 



California has but recently attracted the attention of sanitarians. This 

 tardy recognition was partly due to its isolation, partly to the fact that the 

 argonauts looked not at the sky, but at the earth, and cared nothing for 

 scenery, climate, or a pure atmosphere. The coast belt contained no gold, 

 therefore they ignored it. Southern California, where now bloom perennial 

 orange groves and the rarest exotics, they pronounced a desert scarcely 

 able to support a meager growth of sagebrush and cactus, a fit habitation 

 for the coyote and the squalid troglodyte. Only recently has the fact been 

 known that something is to be found more precious than gold, and from 

 all over the world thousands of invalids flock here; they do not realize that 

 California has a cosmopolitan climate adapted, to all diseases that can 

 possibly be benefited by change of air; that within its borders are to be 

 found the altitude of the Alps, the scenery of Switzerland, the fruits of the 

 tropics, numerous mineral springs which equal in value and are more 

 healthfully situated than are those of the eastern United States or Europe, 

 the pure air of the Colorado highlands, and the winter climate of Florida; 

 and that it is a nice question to always properly decide on that location 

 best situated to relieve their particular disease. They do not always choose 

 wisely. 



Nor is this possible. Every town, every mineral spring, every seaside 

 resort, so loudly and so persistently bids for their countenance, and so little 

 reliable information outside of interested statements can be obtained, that 

 they cannot intelligently select. 



I shall attempt to briefly outline the essential features of our climate, to 

 explain in what particular respects we claim preeminence for it, the 

 rationale of its therapeutic influence, and to mention those localities which 

 are best adapted to certain classes of disease. 



While the climate of California is mainly due to its situation midway 

 the temperate zone, the remarkable uniformity of temperature is due to 

 local causes. The great law that, in the northern hemisphere, all western 

 coasts are warmer than the eastern, is particularly well pronounced when 

 the eastern is compared with the western coast of the United States. The 

 mean isotherm of 50° which passes through New York, latitude 41°, bears 

 northward as it crosses the continent, touching the Pacific at Vancouver 

 Island, latitude 49°. Nature also draws isotherms in her distribution of 

 trees and plants. While on the eastern coast 60° is the northern limit of 

 coniferse, they are found as high as 68° and 70° in regions adjoining the 

 Pacific. It is then evident that the climate of California is much more 

 temperate than that of the Eastern States, which are situated in the same 

 latitude; but this does not hold true of Southern California. Here the con- 

 ditions are reversed; San Diego, in the same latitude as Charleston, is 8° 

 cooler. San Francisco and Washington, in the same latitude and having 

 the same mean annual temperature, have climates very dissimilar, owing 

 to the great difference between the mean summer and winter temperatures 

 of Washington, which amounts to 40°, and the small difference in San 

 Francisco being not over 12°. The mean annual temperature of Santa 

 Barbara is 60°, San Francisco 55°, nor does it fall below this on the north- 



