224 



no prescribed mission or task wliich he must accom- 

 plish, in good spirits and refreshed, with as much to 

 talk of and think oi as he can desire." 



Admitting the force of the above truths, it may safely 

 be asserted that in all these particulars, as in most, 

 though not all others, Egypt ranks much higher than 

 either Algiers or Madeira as a winter resort for the Euro- 

 pean invalid. 



I had prepared some remarks on the peculiarities and 

 merits of each of these, as well as of those of the south 

 of Europe, as compared with those of Egypt, and endea- 

 voured to point out the classes of patients likely to derive 

 benefit from them. No one can have seen much of 

 continental places of resort for British Invalids with- 

 out being painfully impressed with the conviction, that 

 much unnecessary suffering, physical and mental, had 

 been imposed en many of them, from an ignorance of the 

 peculiar attributes of the several places, and the class of 

 diseases and patients they were calculated to relieve. 



The Physician has failed to point out to them "regionea 

 quas elegire, quas vitare," or doing this, he has sent them 

 fi-om all the comforts and advantages of a home, and the 

 careful attention of dear relatives and friends, to the 

 discomforts and annoyances, inseparable, more or less, from 

 a residence amongst strangers in a foreign land, when 

 there could be no reasonable hope that the suflferer's 

 troubles could be counterbalanced by a perfect or even 

 partial restoration to health. That very climate which 

 would at an early stage of the disease, and under certain 

 conditions, have wrought much good, becomes in the 

 advanced stage, and under different circumstances, the 

 certain accelerator of a fatal issue. I must, however, defer 

 these remarks to a future opportunity, as time will not 

 allow of their adequate discussion. 



In addition to the numerous and undoubted advantages 



