148 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



brought to Nebraska. Bronchitis also here readily yields to the influ- 

 ence of the climate. Inflammation of the lungs seldom occurs, and 

 when contracted, readily yields to treatment. A volume could easily 

 be filled with cures wrought by this climate on this class of patients. 

 Of course the climate cannot perform miracles. No one should ex- 

 pect to be cured here who is in the third stage of pulmonary disease. 

 Sick ones who come for health should be sure to go where they can 

 get rest and be provided with home cemforts. When scarlet 

 fever and measles appear they are generally in their mild forms. 

 They rarely appear as epidemics. As to typhus and cerebro-spinal 

 fevers they are comparatively rare. Physicians of eminence assure 

 me that the mortality from these diseases in other States is compar- 

 atively much greater than here. 



The chief complaint that I have heard from citizens of Nebraska 

 concerning its healthfulness is that it tends to produce rheumatism 

 and nervous disorders. On diligent inquiry, however, I have al- 

 most invariably found that the great body of those complaining in 

 this direction are such as have been insufficiently clothed during the 

 colds of winter, or have exposed themselves to an extent or indulged 

 in practices that would have produced these diseases in any climate. 

 The tendency always is, in a new State, among the first energetic 

 settlers, to great exposure. Many start for the West with barely 

 enough to reach their destination. Often little is produced the first 

 year on the homestead, and the old clothes are made to do duty the 

 second year. Until the new homestead is fairly under cultivation 

 (which sometimes takes several years), the new immigrant is often 

 put to great straits for groceries and clothing. Of course, when the 

 immigrant brings along money or stock to carry him over the first 

 year, it need not be so, but thus far the majority have not been of 

 this class. The circumstances, too, of a new country, stimulate to 

 great risks and enterprises. Men will often start off on long 

 journeys, through sparsely settled districts, ford streams, and in 

 many other ways subject themselves unnecessarily to flood and 

 storm. The consequence is that the principal diseases in some sec- 

 tions and seasons, have been rheumatism and neuralgia. I was once 

 laid up with rheumatism, but it was after working in the Elkhorn 

 River, with the water above my middle, when the thermometer 

 was fifteen degrees below zero, trying to extricate my team which 

 had broken through the ice. For this I could not blame the climate. 

 Turkish baths soon took the rheumatism out of me. And yet with 



