48 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
of deaths increases as the coast is left behind. A continuously 
cold or a continuously hot climate it is possible to endure ; but 
great extremes, following each other in quick succession, imme- 
diately cause an increase of the death rate in the Registrar- 
General’s return. The very cold winter which occurred in 
1860 occasioned as many deaths as a severe visitation of 
cholera ; and the death rate for the different diseases increases 
or decreases in a perfectly regular manner according as the 
climatic conditions are favourable or unfavourable to each par- 
ticular disorder. Dr. Williams, in his little work on the “In- 
fluence of Climate on Consumption,” mentions that the natives 
of Tahiti are liable to an exceptionally malignant form of 
that disorder, and shows that it is due purely to climatic 
influences peculiar to those islands, and not to the physical 
organisation of the natives. To prove this he quotes the fact 
that during the time the French frigate “ Serene” was in port 
there, many of the sailors were attacked by a similarly severe 
form of consumption ; that twelve died, and many others had 
their lungs affected. On the other hand, the same writer 
mentions that a Swiss who was domiciled at Panama, and who 
was attacked by a very severe form of consumption, regained, 
on ascending the mountains as high at Quito, all his former 
health and strength, only, however, to lose them again on his 
return to his old quarters. These two experiences prove the 
influence which climate exercises on the progress of disease, 
and the great importance of medical climatology. It will be 
plainly seen that, in the case of the British Isles, to patients 
living in the north and who during the winter require a 
warmer climate, the mere journey southward would be of no 
avail, without a corresponding movement in a westerly direc- 
tion, because during the winter months the temperature of 
eastern and central England is at least as low as that of the 
east of Scotland, and during some time of the year is even 
lower ; while, to improve upon the climate of the west of Scot- 
land, it would be necessary to go to the extreme south-western 
coasts of England. In addition to this it is proved, by an inves- 
tigation of the Registrar-General’s returns, that no sooner does 
temperature fall to a certain low point than the death rate among 
patients afflicted with certain complaints immediately increases, 
while so soon as it reaches a certain height the mortality from 
certain other diseases increases. It consequently follows that the 
inhabitants of central England, where the weather is colder in 
winter and hotter in summer than elsewhere, are liable to more 
diseases than the inhabitants of the western part of the 
country, always supposing, of course, the other conditions to be 
equal. Messrs. Buchan and Mitchell of Edinburgh, in a sin- 
gularly exhaustive and interesting paper, have traced the con- 
