312 On the Frevention and Cure of Disorders 



nql in the summer season : that many patients have been 

 recovered by clianging their residence from a coUl to a warm 

 and equal climate — that especially pulmonary complaints 

 are rare occurrences in warm climates with little variability 

 of tenipcraturc— and some physicians have availed them- 

 selves of these facts, in employinc; artificial means of warm- 

 ing the sitting-rooms and bed-chambers of certain patients. 

 To these- facts and remarks it is proper to produce as evi- 

 dence the much less fatality of our climate in mild than in 

 cold winters* The conunon opinion of the salubrity of long 

 continued severely cold or frosty weather, and of the un- 

 hcalthiness of hut summers, is certainly less popidar', parti- 

 cularly among the medical profession, than formerly. The 

 contrivances for preserving the warmth of rooms by double 

 windows and double doors have been more geneiallv adopt- 

 ed of late years, especially since the publication of Count 

 Rumford's Essays ; but they have been emploved rather 

 upon the oeconomical than the medicinal principle, and they 

 are inadequate fcr this latter purpose. A few plans have 

 been executed of warming houses by means of the heat of 

 the steam of water, or by passing air through lubes heated 

 by a-fire ; but eitlRr on account of the expense, or of some 

 defect in these construclion?, such modes of furnishing 

 warm air have been neglccud. Unfortunately too, on one 

 account, our climate is neither sufficientlv cold in the win- 

 ter months, and for a sufficient duration, to ur'j:e the inhabi- 

 tants to employ tit means of defcnc^:, as in Russia 5 nor is 

 <hc climate subject to so inconsiderable a variation of tcmpera- 

 lurc as to allow, with impunitv, many persons to be exposed 

 in the ivsual manner to the air in the sjiring and sinnnuT 

 months. On this account, the ancient rude nicthiud of 

 \\-arming housis by a tire in the wall of one side of a room 

 continues to be adopted, although it is obvi(uis to anv one 

 ficquainted with the jaws of tin: con)nuuiicalion (.f htut 

 through air, that no benefit, or at least very little benefit, 

 can he derived from fire in such a situa'ion, but in so far as 

 the radiation or oscillation extend?. ]I?nce one part of a 

 room so heated is frequently ditTerent in temperature in dif- 

 jertnl parts, as much as twenty degrees or,niore; and the 



differcr;!:''' 



