OR, THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE IN THE PRODUCTION AND PREVENTION OF PHTHISIS. BY JOHN PARKIN, M.D., F.R.C.S., CORRESPONDING FELLOW OF THE ROYAL ACADEMIES OF MEDICINE AND LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. CLIMATE AND PHTHISIS. CHAPTER I. THE PRODUCTION OF PHTHISIS. Of the various feelings that animate the human breast, there are two which, although diametrically opposed to each other, tend sometimes to produce the same ultimate result. These are fear and hope. The effect of the one causes us to fly from actual and present danger; the influence of the other induces us to believe, that there is a safe refuge elsewhereany where, in fact, excepting on the spot in which we happen to be placed. A somewhat ludicrous exemplification of the effect of these opposite feelings occurred during my stay in the Island of Trinidad, at which time a slight shock of an earthquake was experienced. The servant, who was waiting upon me at dinner, no sooner saw the plates and glasses rattling on the table, than he ran down stairs, as fast as his legs could carry him; but the landlady, who was below, ran up, and for precisely the same reason-an imaginary refuge. It is the same thing in sickness; the majority of persons fondly believing, that, by removal to another climate, they can shake off the diseases that prevail in their own. In many cases, this can be done, and especially with those forms of malarious fever which are peculiar to certain well-known B |
