The influence of climate in the production of tuberculosis was formerly
much exaggerated. Removal to a warm latitude, so generally prescribed
some years ago, is now rarely advised. Although the bland atmosphere and
out-of-door life of the tropics may often check the progress of the
malady, yet the constitution is generally so enervated that the return
to home and friends involves often not only a return of the malady, but
its more rapid progress. At present, a winter at Lake Superior, or other
region where the cold is intense and uniform, is the popular
prescription. I do not doubt the value of the expedient in many cases.
But the consumptive who can afford a winter neither in the Mediterranean
nor at the frigid North may comfort himself that the value of such trips
has been greatly overrated. Advice to the phthisical to spend a season a
thousand miles from home is, to a large majority of them, not unlike
that of the whimsical London doctor to the rag-picker he found coughing
in the streets:--"That's a bad cough, a bad cough, you have. I advise
you to make a journey on the Continent; and, in order to secure all the
advantages, you had better travel in your own carriage." Happily for
those with short purses, health in this, as in most other cases, is more
easily found at home.
I do not believe that the prejudice against our New-England climate,
entertained by consumptives, is well-founded. The slight percentage of
difference against us, as compared with the people of other parts of the
country, in the number of deaths from consumption, is to be traced, I
believe, not so much to our climate as to our manufactories. New England
contains nearly all the great factories, labor in which is so
prejudicial to health,--as well as a greater number of furnaces,
air-tight stoves, and close houses.
I do not believe that the sudden changes of the New-England climate are
disastrous to the consumptive who is well protected. While it is true
that our climate provokes a greater number of colds than that of
Florida, it is not less true that our atmosphere is more invigorating.
"The Climate of the United States," by Dr. Samuel Forry, of the United
States Army, one of the best works of the kind ever published, gives a
great number of facts, interesting in this connection. His statistics
are gathered exclusively from the army. The men of the army are, in
great part, of the same age, from the same rank in life, of the same
habits, and have the same clothing, food, and labor, and when sick the
same treatment. The influence of climate upon human health may,
therefore, be ascertained with more accuracy from careful observations
among this class of men than from any other source. In comparing the
populations of New York and New Orleans, for instance, it is almost
impossible to make accurate allowance for the manifold differences in
habits, diet, occupation, etc.
Dr. Forry shows conclusively, that, while colds and influenzas are more
common in the northern branches of the regular army, as 552 to 271,
consumption is more common in the southern, in the proportion of 10-1/2
to 7-2/3. In the southern divisions there are 708 cases of fever of
various sorts to 192 in the northern. "We may safely infer," he says,
"that whatever tends to impair the constitution, as fevers, tends to
develop consumption in every class which is predisposed, and in all
climates and countries." Dr. Forry's tables present some curious facts.
One which will most impress the general reader is, that rheumatism is
more common at Key West than on the coast of New England. But it will
not surprise the reflecting, that a change of 5° at Key West is felt as
much as one of 20° at Boston. The slight changes, however, do not
equally purify the atmosphere and invigorate the body.