DISEASES OF HOT CLIMATES. 807 



are most fatal during the alternations of sultry 

 heat and floods of rain, that prevail during 

 summer and autumn, in almost every part of the 

 torrid zone, where at that season, they often as- 

 sume the form of typhus ; while it is well known, 

 that in India and in central Africa, the cool 

 winds of the dry season are highly refreshing, 

 and bring with them health, strength, and a de- 

 lightful flow of spirits, but often produce coughs 

 and other catarrhal affections. 



It is therefore obvious, that the surest method 

 of preventing the diseases of hot climates, is to 

 maintain the temperature of the body at the na- 

 tural standard, by resorting to frequent ablutions 

 in cold water, (as practised by the Brahmins and 

 Egyptian priests,) a light vegetable diet, with 

 pure water, sweetened with sugar, or slightly 

 acidulated ; by avoiding exposure to the hot sun, 

 the use of all spirituous liquors, animal food, 

 fatigue of body or mind, especially, the chilling 

 influence of damp night air, cold rains, &c. With 

 such precautions, I should not fear to encounter 

 the most fatal climate of India or Africa.* But 



* That health might be preserved in the most sickly parts of 

 the tropical zone, would appear from an experiment performed by 

 Captain Murray, and related by Mr. George Combe, in the Con- 

 stitution of Man. After remaining two years on the coast of 

 Labrador and Newfoundland, with a crew of one hundred and fifty 

 men, Captain Murray left Plymouth on the 24th of December, 

 1823, for Tampico,Cura9oa,Vera Cruz, and the West India islands, 

 where the Valorous remained eighteen months without losing a 



3G 



