The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-04-21
Health and Mountains

There has come q change in medical
opinion, and a change has followed in
the lives of sick folks. A year or two
ago and the wounded soldiery Of man.
kind were all shut up together in some
basking angle OF the Riviera, walking a
dusty promenade or sitting in dusty
olive yards within earshot of the INTERIM
Unable and unchanging surf-idle among
spiritless oilers; not perhaps, dying, yet
hardly living, either; and aspiring,
sometimes fiercely, after livelier weather
and some vivifyipg change. These were
certainly beautiful places to live in, and
the climate was wooing in its softness;
Yet there was latent SILVER in the sun
shine; you were not certain whether you
were being wooed; and these mild shores
would sometimes seem to you to be
shores of death. There was lack OF
manly element; the air was not reactive;
you might write bits of poetry and prac-
tice resignation, but you did not feel that
here was good spot to repair your
tissue or regain your nerve. And 1t APP
pears, after all, that there was something
Just in these appropriations. The invalid
is now asked to lodge on wintry Alps;
ruder air shall medicine him; but the
demon of cold is no longer to be fled
from, but bearded in his den. For even
winter has his "dear domestic cave"
and in those places where he may be said
to dwell forever tempers his austerities.
ANY one who has travelled westward by
the great transcontinental railroad of
America must remember the joy with
which he perceived, after the tedious
prairies of Nebraska and across the vast
and dismal moorlands Of Wyoming, a
few snowy mountain SUBMITS along the
southern sky. 1t is among these noun
tains, in the new State of Colorado, that
the sick man may find, not merely an
alienation of his ailments. but the posi-
bility of an active life and an honest
livelihood. There, no longer lounger
in a plaid, but as working farmer
sweating at his work, he may prolong
and begin anew his life. Instead Of the
bath chair, the spade; instead Of the reg
ulated walk, rough journeys in the for
est and the pure, rare air OF the open
mountains for the miasma of the sick
room-these are the changes offered him,
with what promise of pleasure and self
respect, with what revolution in all his
hopes and terrors, none but an invalid
can know. Resignation, the cowardice
that apes kind of courage and that lives
in tho very air of health resorts, is cast
aside at breath of such q prospect. The
man can open the door; he can be up and
doing; he can be kind OF man after oil
and not merely an invalid.
But it is far cry to the Rocky Noun
tains. We cannot all of US go farm
ing in Colorado; and there is yet mid
die term which combines the medical
benefits OF the new system with the
moral drawbacks of the old. Again, the
invalid has to lay aside from life and its
wholesome duties; again he has to be an
idler among oilers; but this time at
great altitude far among the mountains
with the snow piled before his door and
the frost flower every morning ON his
window. The mere fact is tonic to his
nerves. His choice Of q place Of win
tering has somehow to his own eyes the
air of an act of bold conduct; and since
he has willfully sought low tempera-
lures, he is not so apt to shudder at
touch of chill. He came for that, he
looked for it, and he throws it from him
with the thought.
A long, straight reach of valley, wall
like mountains upon either hand that
rise higher and higher, and shoot up
new SUBMITS the higher you climb;
few noble peaks seen even from the val
ley; o village Of hotels; world of black
and white-black pines clinging to the
sides of the valley, and white snow -four
ing it, and papering it between the pine
wood, and covering all the mountains
with dazzling curd; add . few score