1864. | Sanitary Science. 507 
sufficient attention is not at all times given :—‘‘ We are not to assume 
that because certain conditions of weather, as indicated by meteorolo- 
gical instruments in this country, are opposed to recovery from certain 
diseases, that therefore patients so suffering are not to be sent 
into any country where meteorological instruments afford exactly, 
or even nearly, parallel readings. In other words, in estimating 
the value of a foreign climate, or the different climates of our 
own country, we are not to depend so much upon a comparison of 
the meteorological data of the several places, as upon the meteorolo- 
gical data and the prevalent diseases and death-rate of one and the 
same locality. To argue that because a given condition of tempera- 
ture, atmospheric pressure, and humidity, in Scotland, is accompanied 
by a certain ratio of mortality, therefore, meteorological data being 
equal, the same death-rate will be observable in Torquay or Madeira, 
would be most fallacious. All other things being equal, the death- 
rate would also coincide, but it requires much more than mere me- 
teorological analogy to establish such a parallelism.” From the 
materials employed by the author, the conclusions he has arrived at 
are to be regarded as applicable only to those localities in Scotland 
from which his data were obtained. With regard to the influence of 
temperature on mortality, he concludes that the relationship between 
mortality from all causes and mean temperature is inverse when the 
mean is below 50°, and direct when the temperature is higher, i.e. 
the relationship is inverse in winter, spring, and autumn, but direct 
in summer. Again a low winter temperature increases the mortality 
from phthisis pulmonalis, especially when ‘it is very and continuously 
low, and both with it and bronchitis the relationship between mean 
temperature and death-rate is inverse all the year round. A high 
mean summer temperature increases infantile mortality. But in all 
statistical inquiries into the influence of temperature on mortality, in 
which the deaths occurring during a given period are compared with 
the temperature of the same period, it should never be forgotten that 
cold and heat do not necessarily act immediately, but that the diseases 
engendered or aggravated by them must run their course, and the 
deaths arising therefrom may be registered at a time when the ther- 
mometric scale exhibits a very different mean from that which it pre- 
sented when the disease originated. 
Again, the prevailing opinion that northerly winds act injuriously 
on health is confirmed by Dr. Jackson’s tables, for a high death-rate 
attends winds blowing from a point between N.W. and 8.E. (north 
about), whilst winds blowing from a point between S.E. and W. 
{south about) occur more frequently during months in which the 
mortality from all causes is low. 
Many other interesting relations are suggested by the tables and 
diagrams with which the memoir is copiously illustrated, such as the 
relationship between the barometric pressure and the death-rate, and 
the influence of drought and humidity on mortality. But for an 
account of the results indicated or arrived at we must refer our 
readers to the original memoir itsclf. 
VOL. I. 2M 
