ACCLIMATIZATION. 663 



will obviously soon be reached if traders and superintendents of 

 native labor are the only colonists who can live there. Moreover, 

 the problem of acclimatization has a great political importance ; 

 for if any one of these European nations be possessed of a special 

 physiological immunity in face of the perils of tropical coloniza- 

 tion, the balance of power may be seriously disturbed. Or a great 

 menace to the feeble attempts of Europeans to colonize the tropics 

 may exist in the surpassing aptitude of the great Mongol horde, 

 which is perhaps the most gifted race of all in its power of ac- 

 commodation to new climatic conditions.* Africa, Polynesia, and 

 all parts of the earth have now been divided among the na- 

 tions of Europe. What will they be able to do with them, now 

 that the explorer has finished his work ? f Because the problem 

 pertains to the sciences of physiology and of anthropology, in no 

 wise lessens its concrete importance for the economist and the 

 statesman. 



Before we are in a position to measure even approximately the 

 influence of a change of climate upon the human body and its 

 functions, a number of subordinate confusing factors must be 

 eliminated. Neglect to observe this rule vitiates much of the tes- 

 timony of observers in the field. In the first place, a change of 

 residence in itself always tends to upset the regular habits of the 

 soldier or the colonist. The temperate youth in England becomes 

 a heavy drinker in the barracks of India; and the Portuguese 

 and Spanish races, predisposed to the use of light wines ready 

 even to give up the habit if need be suffer from the disorders in- 

 cident to alcoholism far less than the English. J Inflammation of 

 the liver is indigenous to the tropics ; and yet the ofttimes six- 

 fold deadliness of hepatitis among English soldiers in India, com- 

 pared with the mortality among the native troops from the same 

 disease, is probably due more to the consumption of alcoholic 

 drinks than to the influence of the climate.* To this fact is also 



possible of colonization by the Teutonic people. In Petermann's Mittheilungen, xxxviii, 1, 

 p. 8, and Ausland, 1891, p. 481, the present extension of the "plantation" stage of culture 

 is shown by maps. 



* This theme is ably discussed by Prof. Ratzel in Kolonization, Breelau, 1876. It forms 

 the groundwork of the pessimistic plaint in Pearson's National Life and Character. Vide 

 also Dilke, Problems of Greater Britain. 



f This was the great question before the International Geographical Congress at London 

 in August, 1895. 



\ Dr. Montano, pp. 428 and 437, and St. Vel, p. 41, insist upon the necessity of abstemi- 

 ousness. Vide also C. Stolz, Das Leben des Europaers in den Tropenlandern, in Mitthei- 

 lungen der ost-schweizerischen geographischen-commerziellen Gesellschaft in St. Gallen, 

 1888. The abuses of this habit are sympathetically portrayed by Kipling in the Mulvaney 

 stories. 



* Davidson, op. cit., i, p. 455. 



