The Arizona sentinel., 1888-02-25


 eastern parts of the United States are generally so severe that per- sons suffering from lung diseases, who can afford to do so are obliged to seek a milder climate in which to spend that inclement portion of the year, extending from about the first of November to the first of April. They hope by doing so to avoid not only the strain upon their decreasing strength and vitality, resulting from the frequently sud den changes to extremes of the weather there, but also the danger of such changes accelerating the disease processes of which they complain.
 The knowledge of this state of affairs has led the people of some localities to advertise largely the climates of their respective places, and, to their discredit it must be said, often at the expense of truth. It is not my intent, in the limited time and space now at my com- mand, to give general disserta- tion on the climate of Yuma, but l think that, by furnishing few substantial facts in regard to the climate of Yuma, during the months of November, December, January, February and March, I may serve some one who may be in search of such information. If 1 shall succeed in furnishing reliable data from which but one invalid will be truthfully informed of the comparative climatic advantages of a few well known winter health resorts, thereby preventing him from being misled by the advertise ments of rival cities, and saved the expenses and hardships attendant upon sick persons journey away from home in search of a more salubrious climate than his own home can yield him, then 1 will feel we'll rewarded for my effort in his behalf.
 Dr. Adolf Strumpell, formerly Professor and Director of the Medical Polyclinic at the University of Leipsic, Germany, says in the latest edition of his Textbook of Medicine: "The choice of a winter health-resort is of great import ance, since the colder season brings with it many dangers for the pa tient. We cannot, omit, however, calling special attention to the fact that we should always ask our selves, in choosing a health-resOrt whether the expense and incon- venience thus imposed upon pa tient can be balanced by the prob able result. It is also blameworthy from a professional and humane standpoint, to send patients in the last stages of consumption among strangers, to die far from their homes and relatives"
 This is not the class of patients to send away from home to be cured by change of climate, yet the fol lowing is a fair sample of what l have often heard from the lips of such patients, who have left cOm- fortable homes in the North and East, and have been sent through this place to be cured by the eli mate. "Doctor, when I left home my physician said that my lungs were all right again, and all that l needed was a change of climate to be entirely well. Since I left home, about two weeks ago, I have been doing real well till last night, when I had another night-sweat," or severe cough, as the case may be, "and I am just as bad to-day as ever" I have found frequently, upon a careful physical examina- tion of such patients, that a good portion of one, and sometimes of both lungs, was in state of tuber- cular infltration, and even in some cases, breaking down into cavities. | I have seen a young wife weep ing over the lifeless, though not yet cold, body of her invalid husband, who had just expired as the train brought them into Yuma. He had been sent away from home to be cured by the climate of Southern California. Could medicine, climate or anything under heaven have cured such case, had he barely survived the journey9 I will leave the reader to draw his own con- clusions.
 There is another class of con- sumptives or, more correctly, per- sons having an hereditary tendency to consumption, whose condition may be ameliorated by @ judiciOus selection of climate which would give the advantages necessary for improvement in this particular form of the disease, Q. g., chronic fibroid phthisis may be benefcially treated by high attitudes having a dry, pure atmosphere; catarrhal phthisis, by a dry, warm, even climate, and so on, each form having conditions of climate which are more beneficial to it's victims than to others.
 The medical profession may be divided in respect to the theories regarding the etiology (causation) of consumption; one class may