CHAPTER V 

 CLIMATE AND HEALTH 



WE have already seen that health depends largely upon 

 climate, and hence that fluctuations in the weather 

 have much to do with the course of business. But can 

 such a view be sustained? Granting th.at health may be the most 

 potent cause of the psychological conditions which cause financial 

 and economic expansion and contraction, what ground is there 

 for believing that health depends primarily on the weather? 

 Aside from a good inheritance, which is of course the first essen- 

 tial, good health depends upon three material factors — proper 

 food, proper drink, and proper air. Exercise is merely a means 

 of insuring that our food, drink, and air have the opportunity to 

 reach all parts of the body, and to be readily eliminated after 

 they have done their work. So, too, with sleep. We need it in 

 order that f ood, drink, and air may repair the ravages of work. 

 Among these three factors air is by far the most variable. In 

 civilized countries the water supply is generally fairly good, and 

 its quality rarely varies much from year to year or season to 

 season. Of course diseases like typhoid and dysentery are caused 

 by polluted water, but in 1915, the last year for which figures 

 are available at the time of writing, neither of these caused 1 per 

 cent of the deaths in the registration area of the United States. 

 Moreover, only a small part of this 1 per cent arose from varia- 

 tions in the condition of the water. In the same way, while 

 millions of people may die from lack of food in countries like 

 China and India, less than forty per year have been reported 

 as dying from this cause in the United States since 1900. A 



