The influence of tropical climates on European constitutions: being a treatise on the principal diseases incidental to Europeans in the East and West Indies, Mediterranean, and coast of Africa (Volume 2).

  • Johnson, James, 1777-1845.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of tropical climates on European constitutions: being a treatise on the principal diseases incidental to Europeans in the East and West Indies, Mediterranean, and coast of Africa (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    MEDITEIMIANEAN. General observations on the Climate, Sec. I.—AVhen we cast an eye along the beautiful shores of this great inland ocean, and survey the clas- sic scenes which present themselves at every step- when we recollect that in peace or in war, the British flag, commercial or belligerent, waves in every port, and off every promontory, from the pillars of Hercu- les to the shores of the Hellespont, we cannot but ac- knowledge that the medical topography—the Endemic —and the contagious diseases of tliis quarter of the globe are not less interesting to Britons than those of either the Eastern or Western Hemisphere. The more intimately we become acquainted with the various climates of the earth we inhabit, the more we shall be convinced that the balance of comfort is not so unequally poised as some querulous philosophers ima- gine. The Eastern world has its Hepatitis—the Western its causus—tlie Northei-n shores of the Medi- terranean have their ** pestilential fevers^^—the South- ern and Eastern are annually desolated by the plague.' If « Happy England knows not these but by report, or in their sequelae, she every year sacrifices nearly sixty thousand of her inhabitants at the altar of Phthisis.' In exploring this interesting track, the labours of many must be united in analytical concentration; and it is upon this plan, hitherto unattempted, that I hope to condense into one focus, a stronger body of light