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ACCLIMATISATION OF EXOTICS IN CORNWALL. 



(First Paper.) 



The Falmouth-Truro District. 



By FRED. HAMILTON DAVEY. 



When Dr. Paris, in his Guide to Mounfs Bay, emphasised 

 the health-restoring qualities of the Cornish climate, the 

 marked equability of its temperature, and the astonishing 

 geniality of its winters, which he thought might '* justly be 

 denominated languid springs," he was as the voice of one crying 

 in the wilderness. The present century was then but sixteen 

 years old, and the climatic advantages which Cornwall enjoyed 

 by reason of its geographical situation were not only not 

 then generally known, but, when casually mentioned, were 

 contemptuously scouted in the face of the prevailing custom 

 among eminent physicians for sending their patients to winter 

 along the northern littoral of the Mediterranean. Eighty years 

 ago, no less than to-day, professional prejudices died hard ; and 

 so. to establish his contention. Dr. Paris found he must be con- 

 tent with a slow pace. The contemporaries of Noah were 

 probably not one whit more hilarious at the ark-builder's 

 predictions than was the medical faculty when the learned west- 

 country doctor insisted that the high mean temperature enjoyed 

 by Cornwall gave it priority over many continental towns, which 

 were then much in favour as winter resorts with those whose 

 delicate constitutions caused them to accompany the swallows in 

 their autumnal flight to the sunny south. 



In a large measure this prejudice has been overcome. Dr. 

 Paris was the protagonist of a propaganda which has culminated 

 in establishing the salubrity of the Cornish winters on a founda- 

 tion as firm as adamant. Not to dwell on the unimpeachable 

 testimony of such peers in the medical profession as Sir William 

 Aitkin, M.D., F.E.S., Professor at the Army Medical School, 

 Netley ; Sir Edward Sieveking,- M.D., LL.D., Physician in 

 Ordinary to the Queen ; Sir Joseph Fayrer, Bart., K.C.S.I., M.D., 

 F.R.S. ; and Sir James Clark, on the peculiar advantages o:ffered 



