Beck on Salt Storms, &c. 395 
regions, is owing to their proximity to the ocean. In confir- 
mation, he states that he has himself experienced the irritating 
effects of the air of the Delta upon the organ of vision.* 
In those cases of scurvy which occur in long voyages, the 
saline nature of the atmosphere co-operates very powerfully 
with salt provisions and bad water, in producing that general 
vitiation of the system which characterizes this disorder. 
all diseases, however, those of the lungs appear to be 
most affected by a saline air. I have ‘known a lady of this 
city who had been. afflicted for many years with asthma, to be 
essentially benefited by a voyage across the Atlantic. Another 
case has fallen under my observation, of a lady troubled with 
asthma, being much relieved by removing from the inte- 
rior to this city. What proves beyond a doubt that her relief 
is owing to the air she breathes, is, that whenever she takes a 
jaunt into the country, she is sure to suffer a paroxysm of her 
old complaint. 3 
Pulmonary consumption certainly prevails more on the sea- 
coast, than in the interior. In all our sea-port towns, it is this 
disorder which so frightfully augments the catalogue of our 
bills of mortality. According to Dr. Rush, “in Salem, in the 
state of Massachusetts, which is situated near the sea, and ex- 
posed during many months of the year, to a moist east wind, 
there died in year 1799, 160 persons; fifty-three of whom 
died of the consumption.”t In Philadelphia, which is more 
remote from the sea, the deaths from consumption are much 
less numerous than in New York, or the other cities immedi- 
ately on the coast. In Great Britain which is exposed to the 
sea on all sides, it is calculated that about 55,000 die annually 
from this disease. 
* On the subject of the Egyptian ophthalmia, it may be asked ‘* why it does 
not appear in innumerable other situations, equally exposed to salt air, as Cape 
Cod, and the West India Islands?” To this it may be replied, that in _ pro- 
duction of any disease whatever, a predisposing state of the system is as ne- ; 
céssary as an exciting cause. This predisposition appears to one ina great 
degree among the Egyptians and depends upon the nature of their climate, rad 
habits, and mode of living, all of which have a tendency anf ping debility 0 
the eyes, and thus render them more susceptible of the impression of 
causes which excite inflammation. 
t Rush’s Medical Observations and Inquiries, Vol. Il. p. 182. 
