AND PERSONALITY 



civilized man and the diseases of civilized man could have 

 developed only in the temperate zone. 



The fact of the influence of climate on civilization, so 

 ably set forth by Ellsworth Huntington, Clarence A. Mills, 

 and William F. Petersen, 1 has afforded us the foundation 

 that we required to offer a simple explanation in physics 

 of the breakdown of the brain, the positive generator of 

 energy in the bipolar mechanism, and of the heart and 

 arterial tree, the negative generator in this system. 



As stated, overwork of the controller of oxidation, 

 namely, the thyroid gland, is expressed by simple goiter 

 and by exophthalmic goiter. Owing to the ceiling of heat- 

 stroke, the load carried by the brain, the heart, the arteries, 

 and the thyroid gland is lighter in the tropics than in the 

 north temperate zone. In the tropics there are few, if any, 

 diseases of overwork of the brain, the heart, and the blood 

 vessels or of the thyroid gland. In "the temperate zone, 

 where there are variable temperature, great humidity, and 

 wind and storm, the load on the energy-controlling system 

 the brain, the thyroid gland, the heart and arteries, and 

 the sympathetic system becomes too great, and the failure 

 in adaptation we call disease. 



Mills shows 2 that fluctuation in climatic averages brings 

 changes in the basic factors of human dynamics. He shows 

 that with the " . . . marked changes in the mean temper- 

 ature level that have taken place both in the distant 

 geologic past, with its alternating ice and warm ages and 

 with the human past since the last ice age . . . with those 

 centuries of warmth man receded markedly in stature and 

 matured several years later, tending more closely toward 



1 HUNTINGTON, ELLSWORTH, "Civilization and Climate," Yale University 

 Press, 1924. 



MILLS, CLARENCE A., "Medical Climatology," Charles C. Thomas, Pub- 

 lisher, Springfield, Illinois, 1939. 



PETERSEN, WILLIAM F., "The Patient and the Weather," Edward Bros., 

 Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1938. 



2 "Medical Climatology," Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Springfield, Illinois. 



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