CLIMATE SANITARY RELATIONS. 467 



men, for hundreds of years, have established as to the influ- 

 ence of climate on disease, is here, simply and with common 

 sense, stated. 



The profession has, from time immemorial, been satis- 

 fied on this point, and catalogued a multitude of phenomena 

 by careful analysis, grouping together a series of influences 

 under the names of sanitary powers of climate, alterative 

 influence of change of air, etc. What are they? They 

 must embrace the whole order of existences that surround 

 and impress the animal economy, as ponderable or im- 

 ponderable. 



Man walks upon the earth like a locomotive plant, sucking 

 his blood from its surface. The rock, the soil, the vegetable, 

 the river, the animal, build up the temple of his soul ; for, is 

 he not " a complex of all that surrounds him, namely, of ele- 

 ment, mineral, plant, and animal ?" The computation of all 

 the influences which surround man in this medium of his ex- 

 istence, is a large field of labor, and necessarily involves the 

 science of every object which he touches, or which in any 

 way comes in contact with the great vital surfaces through 

 which his body is sustained in existence. 



Extensive and learned volumes have been written on cli- 

 mate as a remedial agent. In the first dawn of the intellect 

 of the profession we have seen that the attention of its most 

 gifted mind, Hippocrates, was directed to its investigations, 

 and the great problem of climate, as a physiological and 

 pathological modifier, received a splendid thesis on "Airs, 

 Waters, and Places," from the hand of the Father of Medi- 

 cine. Since those ancient days, the profession has never 

 lost sight of this rich and beneficently fruitful subject, nor 

 ceased to give assiduous attention to this department of 

 knowledge, so important to the vital and all-absorbing in- 

 terest of health to mankind. Traveling physicians have 

 constantly made their observations on the influence of the 

 different climates, localities, springs, and health retreats, in 

 all places with all peoples. Surgeons of the armies and 

 navies of the different nations have been registering, by go- 



