160 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



This description of Mr. Birkbeck may not be exaggerated 

 in reference to some portions of the population. Indeed, it 

 strikingly reminds the writer of some specimens he has met 

 with ; but it would lead to great error if taken as a picture 

 of the country. In other situations, remote from the streams, 

 and on high ground, particularly in the prairies, the country 

 cannot be said to be unhealthy. In all parts of the country, 

 it is true, the fever and ague and bilious fever are rather fre- 

 quent ; but there is also an exemption from some of the dis- 

 orders prevalent in other parts. The usual forms of colds, 

 hoarseness, coughing, sore throat, and pulmonary affections, 

 are almost unknown. Bilious disorders and affections of 

 the liver are the diseases of the country ; but, it is believed, 

 there has been less fatal sickness, and less of prevailing epi- 

 demics, than in most other portions of the country in the first 

 settlement and turning up of the soil. The case described 

 by Mr. Birkbeck was partly owing to situation, but more, 

 probably, to habits of life, and privations and exposure. 



Apart from the partial causes of disease existing in parti- 

 cular situations, arising from the exhalations of the rivers, 

 the decaying vegetation of the bottoms overflowed and left 

 dry, or the marshy or wet grounds which are not strangers to 

 any country, there is no general unhealthiness in the climate 

 itself. The atmosphere of the country is in an unusual 

 degree adapted to the preservation of health ; as is proved by 

 its effects upon the throat and lungs. The prairies send not 

 forth pestilence ; and what is purer than the breeze from the 

 lakes ? The temperature is variable, it is true ; but the air 

 is arid and the circulation free and brisk, and these qualities 

 forbid that the great and sudden vicissitudes should create 

 disease. These changes are sometimes so great in a brief 

 space as to be incredible. The writer is conscious that it 

 requires an easy faith to believe the assertion that he once 



