INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE, ETC., ON THE DISTRIBUTION & CHARACTER OF DISEASE. 539 
The after treatment simple. Suffice it to say that the band¬ 
ages should be removed only every three or four days and the 
feet placed daily into a foot-bath containing corrosive sublimate 
or creoline. In this way I have often obtained union by first 
intention. The patient should be at rest for the first ten days 
and then have gentle exercise until the end of the third week in 
order to regain the normal use of the foot and to allow the 
blood-vessels to reassume their normal condition. 
THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTS ON 
THE DISTRIBUTION, AND CHARACTER OF DISEASE. 
By Prof. W. L. Williams, V.S., Montana. 
A paper read before the United States Veterinary Medical Association. 
The influence of climate, housing, food, care, and other sur¬ 
roundings, induce marked changes upon the distribution and 
character of disease, whether among animals or mankind ; and 
the student of pathology needs to weigh these forces carefully; 
that he may avoid error by arriving at conclusions based upon 
observations confined to a limited area. 
Both in those diseases known to be transmissable, and in 
those supposed not to be capable of passing from one animal to 
another, we find in many instances that the disease is narrowly 
confined to a limited area and never seen outside of it. Others 
are usually confined to comparatively limited areas; passing 
rarely and spasmodically beyond their usual boundaries, soon 
to retreat therein again, others exist mainly in certain centers 
with isolated cases disseminated over a large portion of, or the 
entire animal world, while others know no boundary, apparently, 
except that of animal life ; all presenting interesting variations 
in character, the reasons for some of which we can know or esti¬ 
mate. 
The study of the various influences controlling the distribu¬ 
tion and character of diseases belongs largely to the domain of 
philosophical medicine, and offers for consideration many highly 
interesting and instructive problems, but it is no less a part of 
