The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-10-19
QUALITY OF THE AIR.
Its Eject on Health and Tempera-
ment.
London Spectator.

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 Chirurgi-
cal Society of London, sets us wondering
what the qualities really are which give to
the air of certain places so healthy and
invigoratlng a power. The mar OF science
cannot tell US. though he may help US to
suspect that minute traces of ozone and
mysterious electrical properties have some
thing TO say In the matter. But the knowl-
f finS OF the tb TACT h htseif is as of 9id M a5 Gly,I,kS7
that quaint ard delightful writer who alone
triumphed over Or. %Johnson's Incidence SO
far as to get him out of bed two hours
earlier than he usually rose-though Bos-
well never told us why the photographer
could not have read Burton in bed-has a
characteristic "digression of air" which Is
a mine of curious information on the sub
ject. 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 appetii1ng shape.
The quality of the air-what we should.
perhaps, call the climate-had a great infu-
ence, in the view of the oldest writer's on
Such as is the air such be our spirits. and
as our spirits uch are our humors. 1t Of
tends commonly if IL be too hot and dry,
thick, fuliginous. cloudy, clustering or
tempeStuoGs air."
Cold air is as bad as hot in the same ex-
cess, for which cause Mercurius Britain
habit lust unaer the pole We find it
harder to agree with this doctrine, since a
certain spice of cold is almost an essential
quality of bracing weather with us:
"'Tis 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 troublesome
tempestuous air is as bad as impure, rough
and foul weather, impetuous winds,
cloudy, darks days, as it is commonly with
u.s." I'm a thick and cloudy air (saith
Lemnius men are tetric, sad and peevlsh.
And if the western winds blow, and that
there be a calm or a fair sunshine day,
there is a kind of alacrity in mems minds;
It cheers up men and beasts; but If 1t be a
turbulent. rough, CLOUDY. stormy weather
men are sad, lumpish and much detected,
angry, waspish, dull and melancholy"
Lemnius, it is true, had an ingenious the
DRY to explain this fact, which would hard
ly pass the Judgment OF the modern phySl-
clan, though il might find favor in the eyes
of the Society of Psychical 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. exagi-
tates our spirits and vexeth our souls; as
the sea waves so are the spirits and hu-
mors in our bodies tossed with tempestu-
Gus winds and storms" The modern En-
glishman finds q storm rather eXhilarating
than otherwise, even If Ii does not inspire
him-like Tennyson and aptain Kettle-to
the composition of poetry. Similarly The
Alps. which were regarded as the abode OF
devils in the seventeenth century, and the
savage hills of the lakes or the high
lands are now among our favorite holiday
resorts.
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 car
rion lies, or from whence any sinking,
fulsome smell comes" the principle Of
ancient and well-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
ing Lucullus at his Tusculan villa. criti-
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, | have less sense than the
cranes and Storks. and do not change my
residence according to the seasons"
We do not remember that Mr.. Pepys ever
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
Esher: a trip 10 Southend was a tremen-
dous undertaking.. only TO be encountered
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
Mentone or BiarritZ and summer in the
Alps, is practically a necessity of life to
nave excursions and ''fresh-air fortnights"
more and more at their DISPOSAL.