140 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
(e) Miscellaneous Factors——The four previously considered factors 
have the advantage that they can be readily understood and tested ; but 
as they have failed to provide any basis for the unsuitability of the tropics 
for the white man, the appeal has been shifted to a complex of tropical 
influences, including a rise of body temperature, the lessened activity of 
lung and kidney, and nervous disturbances. Dirt and disease and care- 
lessly prepared food are also mentioned, though they are due to human 
agencies. The physiological effects of the tropical climate in this indict- 
ment are contradicted by high authorities. The rise in body tempera- 
ture is emphatically denied amongst others by Breinl and Young from 
observations in Queensland, and by Chamberlain on the basis of extensive 
observations on American soldiers in the Philippines. A slight rise may 
occur in passing from the temperate regions to the tropics, but it is soon 
recovered ; and Shaklee reports from his experiments on monkeys at 
Manila that ‘ the healthy white men may be readily acclimatized to the 
conditions named—that is, to the tropical climate at its worst.’ Shaklee 
adds that the most important factor in acclimatization is diet. 
The asserted ill-effects of the tropics on respiration appear to have no 
more solid basis. Professor Osborne found at Melbourne that the rate 
of respiration was increased on the hottest days, and his observations agree 
with those of Chamberlain in Manila. So far from the tropical conditions 
being injurious to the kidneys, it is asserted, as by Dr. A. B. Balfour, that 
there is less trouble with that organ in tropical than in temperate climates. 
The apparently inconsistent observations on the action of the kidneys 
between various tropical localities and people, may be explained by 
differences in diet. 
The remaining charges against the tropical climate are insignificant, or 
not based on climatic elements, or are indefinite. Some of the alleged 
factors are trivial, such as the liability to various skin diseases owing to 
a change in the skin reaction ; for if the white man allows himself to be 
kept out of any country by such a cause he does not deserve to get in. 
The hygienic troubles due to association with an insanitary people are 
sometimes adduced ; but they are not an element in climate and would 
not operate in a land reserved for white people. The remaining factors 
rest on ill-defined nervous ailments which are more likely to be due to 
domestic difficulties than to climate. These nervous troubles fall mainly 
on the women who have the strain of disciplining native servants into 
conformity with British ways. Nervous disorders are said to be worst 
in hot, dry, dusty regions which in the tropics are generally regarded as 
the most healthy, except to those whose constitutions require a moist 
atmosphere. 
2.—MeEpDICAL OPINION. 
Medical opinion has gone far towards the general adoption of the 
conclusion that there is nothing in climate to prohibit the white man from 
settling in the tropics. 
As an example of a recent authoritative verdict may be quoted the 
report of a sub-committee appointed in 1914 by the Australian Medical 
Congress to investigate the medical aspects of tropical settlement. After 
extensive inquiries, the comparison of the blood of children born and bred 
in the tropics with those of the temperate regions, and other evidence, the 
