32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



The old London boot-maker had more wisdom than most of the 

 doctors of his time. 



CHAPTER III. INFLUENCE OF SEA AIR; INLAND 

 SEAS AND LAKES. 



SEA VOYAGES 



The value of sea air in tuberculosis has been discussed pro and 

 con for ages and, like the tide, there is an ebb and flow of sentiment 

 regarding its value in the treatment of tuberculosis. Undoubtedly 

 there is, at present, a stronger belief in the efficacy of sea air in 

 the various forms of tuberculosis than at any previous time. This is 

 especially true as regards tuberculosis of the bones, the tuberculosis 

 of children and in the important class of cases termed fibroid phthisis. 



Aretaeus, about 250 B. C, recommended sea voyages for the cure 

 of consumption, and 300 years later Celsus advocated voyages from 

 Italy to Egypt, if the patient were strong enough. Celsus was a 

 layman whose learning was truly encyclopedic, but only his medical 

 writings have survived. When the Roman sufferer from tubercu- 

 losis was not able to make the sea voyage to Egypt he was sometimes 

 advised to pass a large portion of his time sailing on the Tiber.* 



At Kreuznach, Ems, and other continental resorts, salt inhalations 

 are given to patients with scrofulous and chronic bronchial affec- 

 tions. Instead of trusting to sea breezes the patients are taken to 

 halls where saline particles are present in a higher precentage than 

 they can ever be at the sea side. They inhale the salt-laden air and 

 make use of pulverization apparatus. Hours are spent in the open 

 air near the " evaporating fences " so as to inhale salt air at interior 

 stations. At Ems this treatment is carried out in pneumatic cham- 

 bers capable of holding ten people in compressed atmosphere for 

 about 1% hours. 



Sea air is of acknowledged purity as to micro-organisms, dust and 

 adventitious gases. As previously remarked, there is at sea a maxi- 

 mum of ozone and a minimum of all foreign deleterious substances. 

 (See page 9.) Without considering, as yet, the amount of watery 

 vapor in the air of the ocean and other features of ocean air such as 

 its movement and temperature, we recognize some physical contents 

 such as a minute quantity of sodium chloride, iodine and bromine 

 as characteristic of sea air when contrasted with air from any other 



* " Opus est, si vires patiuntur, longa navigatione, coeli mutatione, sic 

 ut densius quam id est, ex quo discedit aeger, petatur ; ideoque aptissime 

 Alexandriam ex Italia itur." Celsus, De Med. lib. in. Cap. 22. 



