NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 261 



an call: or north- wind. On the other fide of thofe mountains they 

 are quite free from thefe damps and fogs. File-field is like a 

 bank to keep back all thofe moift vapours that eome from the 

 fea, and prevents their loading the atmofphere, till they fall in 

 immoderate rains, as they do here in the fummer; for it is feldom 

 known to rain in thofe parts but in fpring or autumn. 



Amongft aJl the trading-towns in Norway, Chriftianfand is 

 reckoned the moft healthful. The truly learned and Rev. Mr. Jens 

 Chriftian Spidberg, dean of that diocefe, gives me in his letter of 

 May 12, 1 75 1, this reafon for it : He obferves that Chriftianfand 

 lies in a more moderate climate than moft of our other towns ; 

 that the horizon is free all round, and cleared by the winds from 

 every quarter; fo that thick fogs and heavy rains do not laft long 

 there. The ground it ftands upon is a dry fandy foil, twenty or 

 twenty-five feet deep, fo that the rain is foon dried up ; for which 

 reafon epidemic difeafes are feldom known there, or difappear 

 and are ftopt by the change of the feafon. Hence the inhabitants 

 of that city live to be very old, often to eighty, ninety, and fome- 

 times even to an hundred years of age*- 



Among the difeafes which moftly appear in the diocefe of Various m 

 Bergen, which is the moft unhealthful fpot in all Norway, I malf' 

 firft take notice of a kind of fcab or itch. This is chiefly found 

 amongft thofe that live along the coaft, occafioned probably by 

 eating great quantities of fat fifti, and efpecially the liver of the 

 cod. This is properly a Scabies-Scorbutica, which may be called 

 a leprofy, but not fo infectious as the Oriental Lepra; for mar- 

 ried people live together many years, and the healthy is not in- 

 fected, tho'the other party has it. But if they have children, they 

 fometimes take the infeclion, tho' not always. This diftemper 

 generally lies in the blood a long time before any eruption ap- 

 pears; at laft it breaks out in ugly boils on the face : they are 

 then generally fent to hofpitals erected for that purpofe, of which 

 there is one at Bergen, and another at Molde in Romfdalen. Our 

 phyficians are of opinion that this difeafe may be cured in young 

 people; but trio' they have often attempted it, I do not find that 

 any one has been thoroughly cured, without fome remains of the 

 diftemper. This may be faid, however, that when they get tol- 

 lerably well, they do not confine themfelves to the regimen that 

 Part II, X x x 



1 eafes. 



