Studies show that the most healthful conditions occur when the temperature is 64 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity is 80 percent. The lowest death rates occur under these conditions. Hot, dry winds exert a tremendous influence upon people often causing irritability, fatigue, headaches, restlessness, crime, sexual irregularity, and an increase in drunkenness. When this fierce, hot wind blows across the Mediterranean from the deserts of northern Africa, whole towns become sirocco-crazed. So pronounced are the effects of this wind that even the law takes it into account.
Judges are most lenient with lawbreakers when their offenses are committed during the sirocco.
The sirocco is also well known for the depressing effect it has on animals and plants. As temperature drops, there is a decline in deaths. This phenomenon is strongest in summer when a drop of 15 to 17 degrees in temperature shows a decline of about 40 percent in the death rate, while a rise of 9 to 10 degrees in temperature results in a 17 percent increase in deaths. Changes in temperature produce the most marked effect in the spring, somewhat less in autumn and least in winter. The Bureau of Child Hygiene of the Department of Health, New York City, cooperated with the Ventilation Commission in an experiment with 84 classrooms and 5,553 children to show the importance of temperature and variability.