HUMAN LONGEVITY. 133 



no small part to the vague notions and prejudices current on 

 the subject, and which science has hitherto but partially cor- 

 rected. The contingencies of climate, for instance whether 

 hot or cold, wet or dry, equable or variable are made the 

 subject of current phrases, often unfounded in fact, and as often 

 of injurious application. Since the Continent of Europe has 

 been laid open to universal travel, local interests and fashions 

 have tended further to distort the truth ; and health is run 

 after, whether from climate or mineral waters, upon the 

 most ignorant plausibilities ; and with little regard to other 

 circumstances which often more than contravene the benefit 

 sought for. The lungs may gain good from a warm atmo- 

 sphere, but this may be paid for by gastric disorders scarcely 

 less noxious. Heat is too commonly regarded as a panacea 

 for all our bodily ills. In truth, cold has an equally fair 

 title to take its place in the class of remedies ; for in many 

 cases where health is inertly loitered away under southern 

 suns, the frame might have gained vigour and vitality among 

 northern mountains. A comparison of the registers of mean 

 mortality in these respective localities goes far to sanction 

 this opinion. 



But we must not deal with this subject as represented by 

 climate only. The amount and purity of the air we breathe 

 is a question belonging to every place, and of far more in- 

 terest to the great mass of mankind. We do not here enter 

 into the chemical theory of respiration, or the several con- 

 troversies it has engendered. What concerns us is the fact, 

 that a certain number of cubic inches of air taken into the 

 lungs at each inspiration, and this air of a certain purity, 

 are conditions necessary to the health and full vitality of 

 the individual being. The imperfect attainment of these 

 conditions throughout the whole, or a part of life, tends 

 in the same proportion to enfeeble the vital power, and to 

 abridge more or less the term of existence. The insufficient 



