464 THE MOUNTAIN. 



diseases of their inhabitants, will be regarded as a work of deep in 

 terest. 



"Unable to visit any part of the region lying between the Alle- 

 ghany River and Alleghany Mountain-crest, or to meet with publi- 

 cations illustrating its medical topography or diseases, I must content 

 myself, at this time, with indicating it to others, as a field compara- 

 tively unexplored by the physician."* 



In the invaluable work of Dr. Drake, on the "Diseases of 

 the Interior Yalley of North America," from which so many 

 quotations have been made, we are presented with the fol- 

 lowing general views on " Climatic Etiology :" 



"CLIMATE OCCASIONS DISEASE. As no fact in etiology is more 

 universally admitted, than the influence of climate in the produc- 

 tion of disease, it follows that he who would understand the origin 

 and modifications of the diseases of a country must study its meteor- 

 ology. The effects of climate are both predisposing and exciting. 

 Thus, the long-continued action of a particular kind or condition of 

 climate may bring about such changes in our physiology as to incline 

 us to some particular form of disease ; while sudden changes often 

 act as exciting causes to other diseases, to which we may be inclined, 

 from agencies not connected with climate. Again, the influences of 

 climate are both direct and indirect. The former results from the 

 immediate action of the atmosphere on our systems ; the latter from 

 its action on the matters which are accumulated on the surface of the 

 earth, which are thus made to send forth agents of an insalubrious 

 character. Thus, the same state of the earth's surface which in one 

 climate may prove highly pernicious, in another may be altogether 

 harmless. 



" CLIMATE CURES DISEASE. But climate must not be studied with 

 a reference to etiology only ; for it can cure as well as occasion dis- 

 ease. It modifies the effects of blood-letting, medicines, and regimen; 

 and, although it maintains some diseases against the united powers 

 of the most active and appropriate articles of the materia medica, it 

 cures others in the absence of the whole. Considered as a therapeutic 

 agent, it is, when skillfully ordered, entitled to great confidence. Its 

 action is not often speedy, but the certainty of its salutary effects, in 

 general, compensates for their slow development. 



"DEFINITIONS OF CLIMATE. In physical geography, the word cli- 

 mate expresses a zone of the earth, running parallel to the equator, 

 of such width that the longest day at its northern limit is half an 



* Drake, pp. 275, 276. 



