S6 UNITED STATES, 



Great Britain have often been accompanied by the 

 most variable weather. His words upon this sub- 

 ject convey a reason for the fact, When the con- 

 stitutions of the year are frequently changing, so 

 that by the contrast a sort of equilibrium is kept up, 

 and health with it; and that, especially, if persons 

 are careful to guard themselves well against these 

 sudden changes/'* Perhaps no climate or country 

 is unhealthy, where men acquire from experience, 

 or tradition, the art of accommodating themselves 

 to it. The history of all the nations in the world, 

 whether savage, barbarous, or civilized, previously 

 to a mixture of their manners by an intercourse 

 with strangers, seems to favour this opinion. The 

 climate of China appears, in many particulars, to 

 resemble that of Pennsylvania. The Chinese v/ear 

 loose garments of different lengths, and increase or 

 diminish the number of them, according to the fre- 

 quent and sudden changes of their weather ; hence 

 they have very few acute diseases amongst them. 

 Those inhabitanss of Pennsylvania who have, ac- 

 quired the arts of conforming to the changes and 

 extremes of our weather in dress, diet and manners, 

 escape most of those acute diseases which are occa- 

 sioned by the sensible qualities of the air ; and faith- 

 ful inquiries and observations have proved, that they 

 attain to as great ages as the same number of people 

 in any part of the world. 



On this subject Mr. William Barton justly ob- 

 serves, that the climate of much the greater portion of 

 tlie United States furnishes great degrees of heat and 



* Observations on the air, and Epidemic diseases, vol. i, p. 5, 



