Apeil 8, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



337 



NOTES ON METEOROLOGY AND 

 CLIMATOLOGY 



PHYSIOLOGICAL METEOROLOGY 



In opening his presidential address^ before 

 the American Meteorological Society at Chi- 

 cago in December, Professor Robert DeO. 

 Ward directed attention to the fact that the 

 Constitution of the Society states as its first 

 object " the advancement and diffusion of 

 knowledge of meteorology, including clima- 

 tology, and the development of its application 

 to public health . . . ." He said further that, 

 in spite of the intimate relations existing 

 between meteorology and health, there are few 

 physicians who have even an elementary 

 ti-aining in meteorology, and perhaps fewer 

 meteorologists who are competent to deal with 

 the physiological and medical relations. It 

 appears, however, that more and more thought 

 is being given the subject, both at home and 

 abroad; and this interest is finding its ex- 

 pression in various researches and numerous 

 papers, these, in turn, being applied practic- 

 ally in the control of air conditions in hos- 

 pitals,2 factories,^ and, in fact, in many other 

 places where human health and mechanical 

 efficiency must be maintained at their best 



ITumerous papers bearing upon the subject 

 of physiological meteorology have been pub- 

 lished from time to time in the Monthly 

 ■Weather Review, and among the most im- 

 portant of these is one by Dr. Leonard Hill 

 of Essex, England, on " Atmospheric environ- 

 ment and health."* Says Dr. Hill: 



The body is fashioned by nature for the getting 

 1 ' ' Climate and Health, with Special Eef erenee 

 to the United States." Author's abstract in 

 Monthly Weather Review, December, 1920, pp. 690- 

 691. Published in The Scientific Monthly, April, 

 1921. 



2 See Huntington, Ellsworth, ' ' The Importance 

 of Air Control in Hospitals," The Modern Hos- 

 pital, April and May, 1920, pp. 271-275 and 348- 

 353; noted in Monthly Weather Review, May, 1920, 

 pp. 279-280. 



3 Mount, Harry A., "Making "Weather to 

 Order," Scientific American, March 5, 1921, pp. 

 188 and 198. 



4 December, 1920, pp. 687-690. 



of food by active exercise, and upon the taking of 

 such exercise depends the proper vigorous func- 

 tion of the digestive, respiratory and vascular or- 

 gans. Consequent on this, too, is the vigor of the 

 nervous system and keen enjoyment of life. So, 

 too, the healthy state of joints, muscles and Hga- 

 ments, and freedom from rheumatic pains depend 

 upon proper exercise of the body, neith«r over use 

 nor under use, either of which may be associated 

 with malnutrition and lowered resistance to in- 

 fection. The hothouse conditions of life suitable 

 for the failing powers of the aged, the injured in 

 a state of shock and those in the last stages of 

 wasting disease are mistakenly supposed to be 

 suitable for the young and healthy. The tradi- 

 tional fear of cold is handed down from mother 

 to children at her knee. For fear of their "catch- 

 ing cold," they are confined indoors and over- 

 clothed. They are debilitated and exposed at the 

 same time to massive infection in crowded places. 

 They require well-chosen food containing all those 

 vitamines or principles of growth which are found 

 in mDk, the young green shoots of plants, grain 

 foods with the germ and outer layers not removed 

 by the miller. At the same time they require the 

 stimulation of abun<iant open-air exercise to make 

 them eat and metabolize their food. Household 

 expenses will go up as more food is eaten by chil- 

 dren excited by open-air exercise to keen appetite, 

 but an immense national economy wiU result from 

 a healthy, vigorous, ef&cient people. 



But to obtain quantitative measures of the 

 meteorological conditions most closely related 

 to bodily comfort and health (these condi- 

 tions being temperature, vapor-pressure, and 

 velocity of air movement), recourse must be 

 had to other devices than the familiar wet- 

 and dry-bulb thermometers. The thermom- 

 eter. Dr. Hill points out, is a static instru- 

 ment, while the body is dynamic, since heat 

 is produced at a certain rate and m^ust be 

 lost at an equal rate. To meet this need. 

 Dr. Hill, in 1913, devised the katathermom- 

 eter, which has given excellent results. The 

 katathermometer^ consists of " a large-bulbed 

 spirit thermometer of standard size and shape, 

 graduated between 100° F. and 95° F. The 



5 Cf. Jacob, Eobert A., ' ' The Katathermometer : 

 An Instrument to Measure Bodily Comfort,'' 

 Monthly Weather Beview, September, 1920, pp. 

 4-97-498, for history, description and photographs 

 of the katathermometer. 



