172 
EFFECTS ON HEALTH. 
The peculiarities of the climate of South Devon 
which we have been considering are not without 
their especial influence on the human body. Our 
nervous systems are ever ready to warn us by 
pain or other bodily inconveniences of the un- 
suitablenes of localities to the maintenance of 
healthful existence,—-we feel that life does not 
consist in living, but in being well. “ Non est 
vivere sed valere vita.” Accordingly, throughout 
the South of Devon, or that part southward of 
the moor, the enjoyment of pure and vivacious 
health is to a great extent unknown to tfee in¬ 
habitants for the greater part of the year. The air 
being usually burthened with a deal of moisture, 
precludes that rarefied and oxygenated state which 
addresses itself so invigoratingly to the nervous 
system. In the same manner that our fires bum 
more briskly in frosty and clear weather, so 
does the flame of human life feel a renewed im¬ 
pulse under the same circumstance; and as fires 
burn sluggishly in hazy weather, so does the 
human constitution under that condition of the 
air, loose its elasticity and vigour,—it becomes as 
we ordinarily say, depressed and enervated. Let 
any one try the results of “ walking for an appetite,” 
first on one day through fields and woods by the 
side of some river, and on the next day let him 
average heat was greatly below that indicated in the above table. 
At 8 o’clock in the evening of January 15th the thermometer 
out-of-doors stood at 46°,—so mild as to render fire undesirable,— 
the air so loaded with moisture as in some measure to impede 
respiration. On 17th we had a very sharp frost, while on the 20th 
the mercury stood at 45°. These are data shewing at once the 
inconsiderable valuation in the average heat of the year, the im¬ 
mediate source of this mildness, and the tendency to temporary 
change. 
