THE WINDS 



Dr. Lister conjectured that the tropical or trade winds 

 arose, in great part, from ''the daily and constant exhala- 

 tions of a sea-plant, called the sargossa, or lenticula marina'^ 

 — a weed which will be noticed in a later chapter — 

 ''which grows in vast quantities from 36° to 18° north 

 latitude, and elsewhere upon the deepest seas. For the 

 matter of wind, coming from the breath of only one plant, 

 must needs be constant and uniform ; whereas the great 

 variety of trees and plants on land furnishes a confused 

 matter of winds. Hence it is that the winds are briskest 

 about noon, the sun quickening the plant most then, and 

 causing it to breathe faster and more vigorously." The 

 worthy doctor — and this was in the year 181 8 — went on 

 to say that "every plant is, in some measure, an helio- 

 trope,* and bends itself, and moves after the sun, and 

 consequently emits its vapour thitherward; so that the 

 direction of the trade wind is, in some measure, also in 

 the course of the sun." 



Among other curious ideas about winds, commonly 

 held in the eighteenth century, was the belief that, in 

 England, the west wind was most frequent about noon, 

 the east in the evening, the south in the night and the 

 north in the morning. 



Less than two hundred years ago, some authors on 

 diseases believed that winds could enter and remain 

 within various bones of the human body. A certain 

 Dr. Reyn, for instance, in his Discourse on the Gout, wrote 

 that "flatuses, or winds, enclosed between the periosteum 

 and the bone, are the true cause of that disease — this 

 wind being of a dry, cold and malignant nature". He was 

 also of the opinion that "headaches, palpitations of the 

 heart, toothache, pleurisy, convulsions, colics, and many 

 other diseases, are originally due to the same cause — the 

 various motions and determinations of the winds, which 

 denominate diseases from the places which are the scenes 

 of their action". 



♦A name given originally to any plants with flowers which turn to follow the sun. 



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