240 Di' Fuster oi the Diseases of Frmce 



not exhibit a dogmatic treatise which science avows ; a work 

 to be recommended on the physical constitution of the sea- 

 sons, on tbeir characters, their elements, their march, and 

 their influence. 



One of the members of the Commission, we know, possesses 

 the materials of a large work on meteorology. Why cannot 

 the friendship which has otherwise so great an empire over 

 him, determine him to the prompt publication of a book so de- 

 sirable, and which would be so useful \* 



A didactic work on the subject is not less wanting to phy- 

 sicians than to astronomers. We have no methodical treatise, 

 no philosophical summary, on the annual morbid states, on 

 the sickly constitutions of the seasons. 



It is not because a sufficiently large number of observers of 

 different countries have not been employed in this double 

 kind of studies. Many undoubtedly have undertaken to fol- 

 low attentively the atmospheric phenomena of each season, 

 and to mark the general diseases which are associated with 

 them. Such, among others, are Sydenham, Van Swieten, 

 Ramazzini, Huxam, De Haen, Stoll, Storck, the physicians of 

 Breslau, Duhamel, Lepecq de la Cloture, the ancient Royal 

 Society of Medicine. But in these we have only the scatter- 

 ed materials for the construction of the edifice to be raised. i' 



On one side, then, meteorologists of high name have labour- 

 ed sufficiently long to elucidate this question, and one point 

 on which they are all agreed, is the immense difficulties which 

 this subject presents. 



Reaumur first ascertained that all thermometric variations 

 of 4° R. (9° Fahr.) notably affect the economy ; so that, accord- 

 ing to this philosopher, 4° more or less of his thermometer will 

 produce on the general sensibility of the skin, an effect ana- 



* The work alluded to is the long promised treatise of Arago on Meteo- 

 rology. — Edit. 



t During ten consecutive years, the Reporter of the Commission has 

 published every three months, the history of the reigning diseases at Paris, 

 v.'ith the characters of the prevailing seasons; it is due to truth to declare, 

 that if this work has not enabled him to ascend to the causes of the great 

 epidemics, it has been very useful for directing him in his clinical exer- 

 cises. 



