OF ATMOSPHERIC CHANGES UPON DISEASE. 165 



Aretseus,* Sydenham, f Boerhaave^J Vitet, Ramazzini,§ 

 Baglivi,|| and more modern authors. Still; owing perhaps 

 to the imperceptible and apparently mysterious way in 

 which atmospheric changes take place, and more to the 

 necessity for well organized and simultaneous observations 

 in both branches of the inquiry, little further progress 

 towards a true science of medical meteorology has been 

 made until lately. The first attempt upon a comprehen- 

 sive plan to advance this subject was made in January 

 1844, by adding meteorological tables, furnished by the 

 Astronomer Royal, to the weekly returns of the Registrar 

 General, these returns being for London only. Somewhat 

 later, monthly returns were obtained from stations in dif- 

 ferent parts of England, and appended to the quarterly 

 returns of the Registrar General; and from the year 1849 

 these stations have gradually increased in number, and at 

 the present time there are about sixty in England and 

 Wales. Similar returns from about forty-five stations are 

 now added to the monthly and quarterly returns of the 

 Registrar General for Scotland. 



Some years after these returns were commenced, it was 

 thought that more useful information might be obtained 

 by similar comparisons with respect to disease; and in 

 1853 an attempt was made by some members of the Pro- 

 vincial Medical Association to compare meteorological 

 tables for different places, with the diseases prevalent in 

 those districts, but unfortunately these records were not 

 continued for more than two years and a quarter. 



In 1857 the General Board of Health in London took 

 up this question; and from the week ending April ixth 



* irept A'lfMTOS 'Avayooyris. 

 t Oiservationum Medicarum. 

 X Causes of Disease, 



§ De principium valetudine tuenda, cap. iii. 



II De ceris hijliixibus investigandis ac perdiscendis, ad morios dignoscendos 

 et cwrandos. 



