i88o.] English and American Physique . 105 
speedily transmitted and puts the whole system into dis- 
turbance. 
The simple operation of sneezing illustrates this law in a 
most interesting and significant manner. It is said, for 
example, of the negroes of the South, that they rarely if 
ever sneeze. It is certain that the nervous, feeble, sensi- 
tive, and impressible of any race are far more likely to be 
provoked into sneezing from slight irritation of the nasal 
passages than those of an opposite temperament. In hay- 
fever sneezing is one of the leading symptoms, and is pro- 
voked by irritations in themselves of the most trifling 
character, which those not victims of the disease can only 
be forced to believe by a personal battle with this enemy of 
the race. 
Differences of Climate. 
These psychological differences come mainly from differ- 
ences of climate, and secondarily from institutions. In 
Great Britain and Central Europe there is no summer and 
no winter, as we in America are accustomed to understand 
those terms. Warm days they have, but not, as with us, 
a succession of days that are hot and oppressive during all 
the twenty-four hours. In the valleys of Switzerland, and 
in Great Britain, there are days that are called very warm, 
but which we in America would regard as simply comfort- 
able, followed by nights of agreeable and delightful coolness; 
and this coolness comes on as early as four or five o’clock in 
the afternoon : people do not suffer from the continuity of 
heat and deprivation of sleep. A well-known physician of 
London told me that he made no change in his clothing all 
the year round, dressing in August very much as in 
February. One who should attempt this in New York 
would desire to perish. 
The European climate allows more out-door life than 
American — not only in Paris, where ^many pass the larger 
portion of their time in the open cafes and on the boulevards, 
but in Ireland, England, and throughout Germany, men, 
women, and children pass far more time in the out-door air 
all the year than in the United States. The climate allows 
them to do this, and encourages it, while in America the 
winters are so cold and the summers so hot, and the twi- 
lights so short, that we are forced to stay under a roof. 
We do have a certain number of days in June and October 
when it is pleasant and inviting out of doors, when it is 
possible to sit in the open air, after the European mode; 
VOL. 11. (third series). 1 
