Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-30
QUALITY OF THE AIR
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH AND
Temperament.
Residence Should Be Changed Accord
ing to the Seasons-Seek-
ing the Sun.

From the London Spectator.
The completion of the excellent treatise
on The Climates and Baths of Great Brit
ain," which has been compiled by a COM
mittee of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical
Society of London, sets US wondering what
the qualities really are which give to the
air Of certain places healthy and invig-
Grating a power. The man of science can
not tell US. though he may help US to sus
pect that minute traces Of ozone and mys-
FERROUS electrical properties have something
to say in the matter. But the knowledge
Of the fact itself is old as civilization. In
the Anatomy Of Melancholy that quaint
and delightful writer who alone triumphed
over DR.. Johnson's Incidence so far as to
get him out of bed two hours earlier than
he usually rose-though Boswell never told
us why the photographer could not have
read Burton in bed-has a chara cteristic ''di-
gression Of air." which Is a mine Of curious
information on the subject. Like General
Lambert and Captain Shandon we have no
shame in taking our learning from Burton,
who read a great deal which no mortal is
ever likely to read again, and had the art
Of dressing up his knowledge In appetizing
shape.
The quality Of the air-what we should
perhaps call the climate-had a great influ-
ence, in the view of the oldest writers on
medicine, upon .nealth ana temperament.
Such a 8 Is the air, such be spirits; and
as our spirits such are our humors. 1t Of
tends commonly If it be too hot and dry,
thick. fuliginous cloudy, clustering or
tempestuous air."
Hot and Cold Air.
Cold air is as bad as hot, in the same ex-
cess; "for which cause Mercurius Britain
nicus belize puts melancholy men to inhabit
just under the pole We find it harder to
agree with this doctrine, since certain
spice Of cold Is almost an essential quality
Of gracing weather with us:
IT'S the hard gray weather
Makes hard English men.
But that Is quite a modern view Burton
would have seen nothing in Kingsley's
praise of the northeast. "a trouble
some tempestuous air Is as bad as
impure, rough and foul weather, i'm
petuous winds. cloudy, dark days, as
it is commonly with u.s. "In a thick and
cloudy air (saith Lemnus) men are tetric,
said and peevish. And If the western winds
blow. and that there be a calm or fair
sunshine day, there is a kind of alacrity
in mems minds; 1t cheers up men and
beasts; but If 1t be turbulent, rough,
cloudy, stormy weather men are said lump
ish and much detected. angry, waspish, dull
and melancholy" Lemnias. 1t is true. had
an ingenious theory to explain this fact
WHICH WouIO pass the Judgment OF
the modern physician. though 1t might find
favor in the eyes Of the Society of PSYCHE
cal Research. THE devil many times takes
his opportunity OF such storms. and when
the humors by the air be stirred he goes in
with them, exagttates our spirits and
vexeth our souls; as the sea waves, so are
the spirits and humors in our bodies tossed
with tempestuous winds and storms" The
modern Englishman finds storm rather
exhilarating than otherwise. even If it does
not inspire him-like Tennyson and Capt
Kettle-to the composition Of poetry. SINH
larry the Alps, which were regarded as the
abode Of devils in the seventeenth century
and the Savage hills" of the lakes or the
highlands are now among our favorite holi-
day resorts
Seek the Sun.
A matter in which the science Of the
twentieth century is mainly able to agree
with Burton In his definition of the worst
kind Of air as "a thick, cloudy, misty,
foggy air, or such as comes from fens,
moorish grounds. lakes, muckhills,
draughts, sinks, where any carcass or
carrion lies, or from whence any shrinking
fulsome smell comes the principle of
change of air still fiourishes. 1t was an
ancient and wel-established one. The
kings of Persia had their summer and win
ter houses"-they sought the sum-" like
the modern patron of the Riviera train de
luxe. Plutarch tells US that Pompey, visit
cised it as a charming place for summer,
but unfit to live in during the winter On
which Lucullus said, with a smile, you
think. then. l have less sense than tn
cranes and storks, and do not change my
residence according to the seasons"
We do not remember that Mr.. Pepys ever
speaks Of going away for his heaIth's
sake, except, indeed. when he fled from
the plague. Jane Austen's people were
content to migrate from the blue bed to
the brown" or at most from Bloomsbury
to Esther; trip to Southend was a tremen-
dous undertaking, only to be encountered
for the sake Of a convalescent But the
instinct for change of air survived, and
nowadays the annual trip to the seaside or
the hills, whether in the guise of the hum
BILE week at Margate, or the winter at
Mentona or Biarritz and summer in the
Alps, Is practically a necessity of life to
all but the very poorest, and even they
have excursions and "fresh-air fortnights"
more and more at their disposal