COLORADO AS A WINTER SANITARIUM. 669 



Should it ever transpire that some means of prevention should be 

 found, by means of which people would be rendered proof against the 

 disease, or at least could be cured when once it had set its seal upon 

 them, would it not be one of the greatest boons vouchsafed to man since 

 the introduction of vaccination ? 



Inventive persons have from time to time thought that they had 

 secured a sure cure, if not an unfailing prophylactic ; and, at the pres- 

 ent time, since the discoveries of Koch, all sorts of parasiticides are 

 being used to kill the germ of the disease. The unfortunate bacillus 

 is now being hunted down with pneumatic chambers, deep inhalations, 

 and local applications inti'oduced by means of the hypodermic syringe, 

 with results that are, to say the least, uncertain. 



But, after all the years of research devoted to the subject, and out 

 of all the methods of prevention and cure that have been suggested, 

 the one that has given the best results, and is now being universally 

 adopted, is change of climate. 



Says Professor Frankland, in an article on the "Yellowstone Park 

 as a Winter Resort," which was published in a recent number of " The 

 Popular Science Monthly," * " The great importance of a winter sani- 

 tarium for patients suffering from or threatened with consumption and 

 other allied diseases has long been recognized and acted upon in Eu- 

 rope." 



Such patients have been hurried off to Mentone and the Riviera, 

 or sent across the Mediterranean into Northern Africa, or they have 

 been told to take a trip up the Nile, and, more recently, they have 

 been congregated at Davos in the Engadine. 



If it be true that, on the other side of the waters, they have recog- 

 nized the importance of a change of climate for the cure of consump- 

 tion, it is also true that the public and medical profession alike, in our 

 own country, are also awakening to a due sense of its efficacy. 



We have our Florida, South Carolina, and Cumberland Mountains, 

 the Adirondacks, Southern Cr.lifornia, Minnesota, and Colorado, and 

 New Mexico, where patients are sent indiscriminately, each one of 

 which places has its coterie of especial admirers, and over the respect- 

 ive merits of which a great deal of verbal warfare has been waged. 



It is not the intention of the writer to enter upon any arguments 

 with so-called climatologists as to what are the specific elements of a 

 climate adapted to consumptives, nor to give a detailed comparison of 

 the several resorts. Each place can undoubtedly give its instances of 

 remarkable cures, as can also Cape Cod and certain portions of New 

 Jersey ; and some rare and isolated cases could also be cited where 

 complete recovery has resulted even in the large cities ; but the point 

 is, to determine just where and under what conditions we may invaria- 

 bly look for the best results. 



To be able to speak ex cathedra on such a matter would require an 



* Julj, 1886. 



