The Mediterranean shores of America : Southern California, its climatic, physical, and meteorological conditions / by P.C. Remondino.

  • Remondino, P. C. (Peter Charles), 1846-1926.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Mediterranean shores of America : Southern California, its climatic, physical, and meteorological conditions / by P.C. Remondino. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    that is offered by the high Andean or Himalayan plateaus. The same wide difference also exists as to the dryness and humidity of the air,—as all extremes of hygrometric conditions are to be met in the above-named regions, California alone exhibiting every extreme, from the 5 per cent, in its arid regions—which even goes lower still—to the point of 100, or saturation, which is at times reached on the coast. The islands to the north of Scotland, the Scotch hills, and the west of Ireland, as well as England, are in a continued moist atmosphere; while the opposite conditions exist on the different levels of the high mountain-plateaus of the Andes. Humidity of the air, as gathered from its natural source,—the ocean,—can hardly, then, be accused of being the mor- bific element elsewhere. The same may be said of mists, fogs, or rains, as every possible condition in which these are to be found is met in the above localities—from less than an inch of rain to a maximum of 100 inches per annum are repre- sented—to which might be added the Asiatic localities that have excessive rain-falls, as of 500 or more inches, which are also exempt from phthisis. The number of rainy days, also, is represented by either extremes, as much as are the winds, electric condition of the air, and diaphaneity. Density of population, which has been accused as a factor of phthisis, has been shown by Hirsch not to be such a blamable element, as he cites seven cities that have from 20,000 to 320,000 inhabitants, without any accompanying phthisis. The material col- lected by the Swiss Statistical Bureau and the researches of Miiller, Schroter, Kuchenmeister, and others have demonstrated that it is more in the manner in which a population lives than its mere density that is the real factor of disease.