GREAT PLAINS AS A HEALTH RESORT. 29 



are mostly of an intermittent character, and the severer 

 forms of bilious remittent, are seldom seen. * On the 

 other hand, as might be expected, rheumatism, and 

 pulmonary affections become more prevalent. Still 

 with due precaution to guard against chills, that great 

 first cause of most of the ordinary forms of serious 

 illness, it may be fairly said that in no other part 

 of the world can the European traveller reside and 

 move about at all seasons of the year with better 

 prospects of preserving that greatest of all blessings, 

 robust health, than he can upon the open and breezy 

 plains comprised within this great region. It is here 

 that the white man may be said to have attained his 

 highest intellectual and physical development and in 

 connection with this latter fact, we think that the 

 English-speaking peoples may look upon it as a matter 

 for legitimate pride and thankfulness, when they consider 

 the enormous extent of territory occupied and inhabited 

 by their race within this favoured region. There can 

 hardly be a doubt that by far the largest portion of 

 its richest and finest country is comprised within the 

 limits of these English-speaking lands. We note the 

 fact, however, without the slightest desire either to 

 excite international jealousies, or to depreciate the 

 territories of other nationalities ; but in doing so it will 

 doubtless have struck the reader that the greater part 

 of the British Islands themselves lie outside, and to 

 the North, of this great and favoured region, and 



* It is remarkable that the first settlers in many parts of America 

 suffered severely from fever and ague in a way that succeeding generations 

 have not done. There can be no doubt that the cause of this was 

 turning up of virgin soil wherein the malarial germs had accumulated 

 through the ages but once exposed to the sun and air these germs 

 became so diluted as to become almost innocuous. 



