804 INFLUENCE OF HOT CLIMATES 



more fatal to the human race, by generating fever, 

 dysentery, diarrhea, hepatitis, gastritis, and en- 

 teritis, all of which belong to the same class, 

 and are modified effects of the same morbific 

 states of the atmosphere. We have seen that 

 malignant fever, and diseases of the abdominal 

 viscera, are far more prevalent and fatal in the 

 tropical portions of Africa, Asia, and the West 

 Indies, than in the warm climates of southern 

 Europe or the United States, where they are also 

 more common and violent than in the temperate 

 and higher latitudes. According to Humboldt, 

 whose statement is confirmed by the Reports of 

 Tulloch, the yellow fever of the West Indies is 

 never produced at an elevation of 2,500 feet above 

 the level of the sea. And Dr. Caldwell asserts, 

 from his own observations, that it never made its 

 appearance in the United States, without a mean 

 temperature of 80, for the period of at least a 

 month. (Malaria and Temperament, p. 63.) 

 The most deadly forms of remitting fever that 



body is attended with the loss of sensation and motion. It has also 

 been shown by Tulloch's Reports, that cutaneous diseases are far 

 more prevalent in cold than in hot climates. And the fact has 

 been unknowingly established by the celebrated quack Priesnitz, 

 who causes his patients to remain from fifteen minutes to an hour, 

 or more, three times a day, sitting in a bath at 60, which in a few 

 weeks causes the skin to be covered with eruptions, boils, or 

 abcesses, that sometimes discharge daily several glasses of matter, 

 which is regarded as a critical evacuation of bad humours. (Hy- 

 dropathy, by Claridge, pp. 118, 125, 196.) 



