412 HILL SANITARIUMS. 



On the other hand, under ordinary circumstances, 

 and up to a certain point, the health-giving and bracing 

 effects of mountain air are so well known that it would 

 be needless to do more than record it as a matter of 

 ascertained fact. In the tropics for instance, the value 

 of a move to the hills is now admitted to have almost 

 entirely changed the conditions of European life in 

 these countries. In former days before these things 

 were generally recognised, Europeans sent out to the 

 East and West Indies used to die in a way that it 

 is frightful to think of; whereas now-a-days these high 

 rates of mortality are entirely unknown ; mainly because 

 troops etc., are no longer kept in pestilential quarters 

 on the edge of the sea, and because sick cases are 

 at once sent to the hills but also no doubt partly 

 through the cheapening of transit and the more general 

 use of quinine, and last but perhaps not least, owing to the 

 adoption of a more sensible system of clothing, the 

 substitution of woollen for linen and cotton garments, 

 together with the universal use of sun helmets. Sudden 

 ascents from the plains in tropical countries to considerable 

 elevations are however not advisable in cases of malarial 

 diseases, as the tendency of the sudden change of climate 

 is to bring out any germs of malanal fever that may 

 be lurking in the system, and so precipitate an attack. 

 Doctor S. O. Bishop of Darjeelin g for instance, has written 

 strongly upon the necessity of caution on the part of 

 visitors from the Indian plains, when ascending to this 

 station, a well-known sanitarium situated in British 

 Sikkim, just about 7000 feet above sea level, and says, 



"I have often noticed after arrival in a hill station, from 

 the plains, that visitors, more especially those who come on 

 account of their health, suffer from various indispositions. 



