DISEASES. 
173 
ascend to the atmosphere of some hill, in which 
aqueous matter by its weight will not remain 
suspended and to which indeed it is but sparingly 
driven, save in cloudy and moist weather. 
u -she loves— 
Hygeia loves the upland ridge-” * 
Another peculiarity of our climate—its continued 
liability to change, has also a corresponding in¬ 
fluence upon us, and since we draw r incessant 
supplies from the universal medium, and as that 
itself is endued with such great powers on our 
systems, surprize cannot be excited that diseases of 
no slight moment are called forth in those parts most 
decidedly exposed to it, and concerned with it. 
Sudden checks of perspiration inducing colds and 
fevers; preternatural and sudden excitement of 
the blood-vessels of the lungs causing various kinds 
and degrees of inflammatory disease in those organs; 
and lastly a host of other (sometimes anomalous) 
inflammations in various parts of the body seem 
therefore to be the particular consequences of this 
variable quality of the temperature and composition 
of the air. Pleurisy in particular is unusually 
common with us in damp seasons, and aiiso catarrhal 
ophthalmia and quinsey. 
To avoid this disastrous power of our climate, 
persons of delicate constitutions and especially 
of consumptive habits resort to places bordering 
on the sea well backed by hills intercepting the 
* I have no question but that the elasticity suddenly felt by 
those who visit the moor, and the stimulus which the body seems 
to receive, depends on the quantity of oxygen contained in the 
air of that district. I believe I never experienced real hunger 
but twice, and those were the occasions on which I visited 
Dartmoor. 
