KANSAS CIT\ REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
aginable circumstances, the certainty of using it with success is one of the greatest 
of its recommendations. — H. in American Architect.. 
MEDICINE AND HYGIENE. 
CLIMATE IN THE CURE OF CONSUMPTION. 
SAMUEL AUG. FISK, M. D. 
Humidity. — There is a unanimity of opinion amongst authorities in regard 
to the relation of moisture to the production of phthisis. The seventh annual 
report of the registrar-general of Scotland showed that the death-rate from phthisis 
diminished in proportion to the dryness of the location. Dr. H. I. Bowditch, 
of Boston, has shown that phthisis is prevalent in damp soils in the United States. 
" It is also common in Holland, and other countries liable to damp fogs and an 
atmosphere saturated with moisture" (Reynold's System of Medicine, III. 548). 
Ruehle, in Ziemssen, says, "It appears that moist air favors consumption." 
Dr. Austin Flint says, "It may be stated that the prevalence of the disease is 
less in climates either uniformly warm and dry or uniformly cold and dry." And 
Dr. C. T. Williams writes, "As to the desirabiUty of moist climates for consump- 
tive patients, the evidence is decidedly against their use in the treatment of 
ordinary chronic phthisis." 
If we attempt to explain why it is that phthisis is more prevalent in moist 
climates than in dry, we might assign as a cause the prevalence of germs, or the 
impurity of the air, containing the effluvia of decay, or perhaps the greater sus- 
ceptibility of the system to cold in moist climates ; or it may be that the air, being 
so near saturation, cannot take up the requisite amount of the aqueous vapor 
exhaled from the lungs. Causa latet vis est nota may adequately express the state 
of our knowledge in regard to this point. A moist climate is acknowledged to 
be a breeder of phthisis ; and, au coniraire, a dry climate is known to afford a cer- 
tain exemption from the disease. This shown by the fact that the disease is rare 
in Iceland, in the island of Morstrand, on the steppes of Kirghis, and in the 
interior of Egypt; in all of which places the element of elevation is wanting. It 
may, then, be conceded, that dryness of the air is an important element in the 
prophylaxis and cure of phthisis. 
The method of determining the humidity of the air is that introduced by 
Regnault, known as the wet- and dry-bulb test. It can easily be seen that the 
results obtained will depend on the exposure of the thermometers, and on the 
accuracy of the readings. Moreover, the amount of moisture that the air is cap- 
able of holding varies with the atmospheric pressure and temperature. 
While it seems to us that a table showing the relative humidity, /. e., the 
