The New York herald., 1871-12-26

Boreas made themselves 60 keenly felt thou
sands Of the sickly and invaded classes were
looking for serene aud milder skies. In old
times ii was not possible for the consumptive
to vary his climate with the change Of season,
but now the Immense facilities Of locomotion
and the endless variety Of climate in America
enable the victims Of lingering disease to pro-
long life by quick and easy changes ofsesi-
dence. sest
1t is q subject Of profound congratulation to
suffering humanity that the researches and
observations Of our day enable us to project
the outline Of new science--a science Of
health-bearing directly upon the needs of the
race, which we venture to call medical
meteorology. The facts and laws upon which
this science is to be erected are not completely
unmasked, but enongh Is already known to
warrant several highly practical and inyalu-
able generaliEati9ns. ~ ,'' ~ NJ
The great prsblsm q : geographical kind
heretofore Gppermost In The medical world
has been to hnd an equable and yet genial
climate for the enfeebled- or diseased patient
1t is we'll known that regions Of excessive
humidity and great hygrometrio and thermo-
metric changes are very fatal. The statistics
of disease and death show the superiority (for
wasting diseases) Of insular and Mediterranean
climates to those Of continental interiors.
Thus the islands of New Guinea, Australia and
Tasmania are notably exempt from ali cpl
denies. Although in closest and most con-.
stant commercial communication with India
the birthplace Of Asiat!c oholera-the islands
Of the Southern ocean are strangers TO this
disease; typhus and other fevers, whom i'm
ported, lose their virulence, and pulmonary
consumption is unknown among the natives.
It is the insular climate OF England which, a.
Professor Tyndall has said, snakes her fields
so green and gives tho blossom to her
maidens' cheeks" while the climate of such
inland regions as the Thibetian plateau In
Asia Is thought to be uncomfortable by most
constitutions. New York, the island city,
whose temperature In midwinter Is mitigated
both by the sea and by the cir Of the warm
lakes, fed to 1t thr~dgh the Mohawk and Hud-
con River valleys, has doubtless thus obtained
her splendid climate, the best to be found in
America east of the Rocky Aount tains. I'll u
But while there is much to choose In the
geographical position 4 '.ifercnt regions and
even in different oities Of the same region,
however small there is reason for believing
that .he selection Of climate for medical pur-
poses has been heretofore based upon . wrong
principle, or, rather, upon generalization too
narrow. Ha l2s ~ eA I.
Tho tamnorafuro var;oa upidnlv from ann.
mer to winter in every extra tropical latitude,
but the tropics themselves are deadly to a
large class Of patients and cannot be resorted
to. But great as is the variation from season
to season in all extra-tropical regions, 1t does
not compare in severity with the variations
which occur during the passage over them Of
a serious storm or cyclone. snch as we have
every week passing through some part Of this
country. Formerly physicians sent the con-
sumptive to st. Paul, Minnesota, for Its sup
posed uniform dry and cold temperature. On
the Sd inst, during the passage Of the recent
gale to the eastward Of ST. Paul, for an
example, the Signal Service reports show that
the thermometer, at twenty-five minutes to
eight A. NJ, read fifteen degrees (Fahrenheit)
above zero, and at the same hour the next day
1t read nineteen degrees below zero. showing
change of thirty -four degrees in the course Qf
a single day (the next day it changed
thirty EIGHT degrees), which is at least half
as much as the entire annual variation at ST.
Paul, taking the means for July and January.
Then, again, we have had the most remark
able and extreme change within the Last few
days. from Arctic rigor Of cold to mild
spring temperature. In other words
patient at st. Paul would be racked and
tortured with the change of temperature as
much in single day during the passage
of a storm centre as he would be In
the space OF three months from merely
seasonal changes. 1t il evident, therefore,
without giving further illustrations, which
could be indefinitely multiplied, that the /.
problem Of temperature for the invalid is not
so much the determination Of those regions
where the forces of solar and terrestrial radia-
ton work most powerfully (although this is an
important qnestion), but 1t reduces Itself
rather to determination and avoidance Of
the great storm tracks on the Contiaent. along
which the diurnal oscillations both OF the
barometer aud thermometer are excessive and
almost terrific. .'
During his first voyage OF discovery
Columbus pointed out in the North Atlantic q
region of oceanic calm, to which geographers
have given the name Of the Sargasso Sea--"a
sea Of rest'--around which the great currents
of the ocean circulate and into which they
throw of their weedy and fea.iag mat
ter. We know that such sargassos
also occur in the South Atlantic,
the Indian and Pacific oceans. But what Is
more to the purpose, the researches Of meteo-
rology now show the Existence 81 similar
atmospheric sargassos, around which the