x88o.J 
Analyses of Books, 
20 7 
On Phthisis and the Supposed Influence of Climate. Being an 
Analysis of Statistics of Consumption in this part of Aus- 
tralia. By WilliamThomsqn, F.R.C.S., F.L.S. Melbourne: 
Stillwell and Co. 
Climatic influence upon phthisis and tuberculosis is a question 
which is daily growing in importance in the scientific world. So 
much of the mysterious is still involved in the pathology of the 
disease that any straw is eagerly clutched at, and too many are 
willing to attribut to fog and mist attributes to which they have 
no just claim. Phthisis is admittedly hereditary ; is popularly 
supposed to be influenced by climate ; and generally understood 
to be non-contagious, and amenable only to prophylactic and 
palliative treatment. Are these surmises correct ? That it is 
hereditary may be taken for granted. Is it non-contagious ? If 
so, why is it that the apex of the lung is most liable to be at- 
tacked ? Is it possible that true phthisis arises in the first 
instance from inhalation of living organisms that propagate in 
the tissues ? If so, does not the root o^ the etiology of phthisis 
lie rather in sanitation than in climatic influence ? And, further, 
if this be granted, is it not rational to suppose that direcft con- 
tagion may take place ? That direcft contagion is possible is 
tacitly admitted, if not openly confessed, by the frequent counsel 
given by the profession to patients of a scrofulous tendency to re- 
move to open spaces in hilly districts where the climate is equable, 
dry, and bracing. Here, avoidance of over-crowding is the 
clearest benefit obtained, climate having but little apparent in- 
fluence. In the case of Switzerland, for instance, Prof. Parkes 
says— “ Although on the Alps phthisis is arrested in strangers, 
in many places the Swiss women on the lower heights suffer 
greatly from it : the cause is a social one ; the women employed 
in making embroidery congregate all day in small, ill-ventilated, 
low rooms, where they are often obliged to be in a constrained 
position ; their food is poor in quality. Scrofula is very common. 
The men who live an open-air life are exempt.” — ( Practical 
Hygiene , 1878, p. 440.) 
The remarks thus applied to Switzerland are apparently equally 
applicable to Victoria, and the colony of New South Wales 
generally. Hitherto it has been de rigueur to prescribe emigra- 
tion to this colony as a prophylactic of phthisis ; but a recently 
published work of Mr. William Thomson, F.R.C.S., of South 
Tana, goes far to dispel this illusion. In this exhaustive statis- 
tical treatise Mr. Thomson shows that during the years 1876, 
1877, and 1878, 3003 persons died of phthisis in the colony of 
Victoria, of whom 762, or 25*37 P er cent, were born in Australia; 
2003, or 66*70 per cent, had resided there upwards of five years; 
ii 2 } or 3*73 per cent, had lived there upwards of two years ; and 
