1839.] Lieut. Irwin s Memoir of Afghanistan. 803 



over the greatest variety of climates ; and in pursuit of gain, they seem 

 little to regard the heat or cold to be endured. 



87- The natives of the warm climates do not manifest the same im- 

 patience of the winter cold climates ; on the contrary, Cabul and Kush- 

 meer are the theme of their praises. It seems doubtful whether this 

 quality of the warm climates, by which those born in them are 

 adapted to both species of climates, can be brought forward more 

 in their commendation, or as an argument of their being plainly 

 inferior to the others. It will be found generally true, that in cold 

 climates there are more numerous diseases, perhaps more unhealthi- 

 ness; but the natives are more robust and enjoy longer life. In these 

 countries it is remarked that the hair sooner turns grey, and life 

 is shorter in the warmer districts ; eye complaints, moreover, are most 

 common in them. When known in the cold, they usually proceed 

 from travellers having exposed themselves to the glare of the snows ; 

 but the summer is the season of this complaint in the warm districts. 

 Even those patients in whom they have become chronic, feel a re- 

 mission of their pains in winter. The natives have no rational theory 

 to account why they are more prevalent in some warm countries 

 than in others. Because they affect moist districts rather than dry, 

 these theorists maintain them to arise from the eating of rice, not 

 adverting that they are not peculiarly severe in Kushmeer, and that 

 there are places in which, though rice be the chief food, they are rare- 

 ly known. It is a singular fact that ophthalmia begins to be common 

 where the summer rains of India become scanty and uncertain. I am 

 inclined to be of opinion with Volney, that it is caused by the dews 

 and breezes to which those who sleep on the terraces expose them- 

 selves. 



88. Fever is an universal complaint. Fevers are most common at 

 the equinoxes, but those of the spring are generally of the hot species, 

 where agues and low fevers prevail in the autumn — which, on the 

 whole, is the unhealthiest season of the year. The former species of fe- 

 vers are commoner in the cold than in the warm districts, and the re- 

 verse is true of the latter. The effusion of cold water in the paroxysms of 

 hot fevers, though practised in Persia for ages, is here unknown, except 

 to the Kafirs. It is a general practice to take purging medicines and 

 to draw blood in the spring. Under another subject (see para. 51 and 

 58) a few places have been mentioned as unhealthy ; there now remain 

 very few to be added. There are many diseases in Kushmeer, a fact less 

 owing to an unhealthy air than to filthiness, poverty, and the degraded 

 condition of the inhabitants. The Kashmeerees are at the same time 



5 L 



