Health resorts and their uses : being vacation studies in various health resorts / by J.[sic] Burney Yeo.

Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health resorts and their uses : being vacation studies in various health resorts / by J.[sic] Burney Yeo. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    “ Those who need bracing,” writes Dean Alford, “ are apt to complain of a fevered and depressing effect at Mentone. On three separate occasions have I found this, and each time I have speedily lost it among the palms of Bordighera.” Bordighera is the next health resort eastward from Mentone, from which it is distant about ten miles, being three miles from the Italian frontier town of Ventimiglia.* Bordighera is a conspicuous object nearly all along the Western Riviera, as it is seen glittering in the sunshine, its houses clustered together on a promontory that pro- jects far out into the sea. It is the only health resort on this coast that occupies a position on a promon- tory ; all the others being built round bays or depressions in the coast. It is naturally, therefore, much exposed to winds, that is to say, to all those winds that can reach it in blowing across the sea; the east, the south-east, the south-west, and the west winds can all blow freely upon this promontory. But it is well protected by mountains to the north, north- east, and north-west, whence the coldest winds come. Moreover, it is to be remembered that all the winds that reach it must, on account of its position, come to it from the sea, and impregnated with saline ema- nations. And this is the sole distinguishing charac- teristic of the climate of Bordighera as compared with that of neighbouring stations ; the predominating influence of sea air rendering it essentially bracing and tonic. For this reason, also, its temperature is probably rather more equable—warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer—than at other places on this coast. The old town of Bordighera is built partly on the promontory itself, and this commands a fine view westward of the Riviera coast, Cap Murtola, the mountains round Mentone, the Tete de Chien above Monaco, and even, on a clear day, the Esterels, west of Cannes ; eastward the view is not very remarkable, * Where a tedious delay and an examination of lug-vaere takes place at the Italian Custom House.