IN THE HIGHER LATITUDES. 803 



been much greater; and nearly 25 per cent, greater 

 from all diseases. 



If, then, it be true, that in a population of 

 15,441,735 in England and Wales, the annual 

 mortality is 105,199 from diseases of the respira- 

 tory organs, it is fair to conclude, that in the whole 

 of Europe, with a population of 230,000,000, the 

 annual mortality is 1,566,907 from maladies of 

 the same class. For if they be less fatal in Italy, 

 Greece, Spain, and Portugal, than in Great Bri- 

 tain, the case is otherwise in Russia, Sweden, Nor- 

 way, and Denmark, where it was estimated by 

 the Chevalier Edelcrantz, that 75 per cent, of all 

 the diseases are owing to the immediate agency 

 of cold.* 



But although a large majority of diseases are 

 brought on by the influence of cold, the long 

 continuance of an elevated temperature is still 



* It was observed during and after the disastrous retreat of 

 the French from Moscow, that paralysis, deafness, loss of vision, 

 and apoplexy, were frequent effects of exposure to intense cold, 

 which is so well known to be the cause of rheumatism, that pa- 

 tients affected with it have been called weather gauges. It is 

 truly observed by Bright and Addison, in their recent work on 

 the Practice of Medicine, that apoplectic and hemiplegic patients 

 are occasionally affected with pains in the limbs or side, resem- 

 bling the rheumatic and neuralgic affections arising from exposure 

 to a current of cold air : that the first distinguishable effect of 

 such exposure is often a paralysis, that in other cases, lumbago 

 terminates in paraplegia, that exposure of the face sometimes 

 causes neuralgia, and at other times mere paralysis without pain, 

 (p. 576.) Nor is there anything surprising in all this, when we 

 reflect, that a great reduction of temperature in any part of the 



