The theory and practice of hygiene (Notter and Firth) revised and largely re-written / by R.H. Firth.

  • Notter, J. L. (James Lane), 1843-1923.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The theory and practice of hygiene (Notter and Firth) revised and largely re-written / by R.H. Firth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    740/1096 (page 698)
    mortality of the soldier has been gradually decreasing, until, in some stations in the West Indies (as, for example, Trinidad and Earbadoes), the sickness and mortality among the European soldiers are actually less than on home service in years which have no yellow fever. In India, a century ago, people spoke with horror of the terrible climate of Bombay and Calcutta, and yet Europeans now live in health and comfort in both cities. In Algeria the French experience is to the same effect. As the climate and the stations are the same, and the soldiers are of the same race and habits, Avhat has removed the dangers which formerly made the sickness threefold and the mortality tenfold the ratio of the sickness and deaths at home ? The explanation is very simple: the deaths in the West Indies were partly owmg to the virulence of yellow fever (which was fostered, though probably not engendered, by bad sanitary conditions) and the general excess of other febrile and dysenteric causes. The simple hygienic precautions which were efficacious in England have been as useful in the West Indies. Proper food, good water, pure air have been supplied, and, in proportion as they have been so, the deadly effects attributed to climate have disappeared. The effect of a tropical climate is, so to speak, relative. The temperature and the humidity of the air are highly favourable to decompositions of all kinds; the effluvia from an impure soil, and the putrescent changes going on in it, are greatly aggravated by heat. The effects of the saaiitary evils wliich, in a cold climate like Canada, are partly neutralised by the cold, are developed in the West Indies, or in tropical India, to the greatest degree. In this way a tropical climate is evidently most powerful, and it renders all sanitary precautions tenfold more necessary than in the temperate zone. But all this is not the eft'ect of chmate, but of something added to climate. Take away these sanitary defects, and avoid malarious soils or dram them, and let the mode of living be a proper one, then the European does not die sooner in the tropics than at home. It must be said, however, that an element of uncertainty may be pointed out here. In our tropical possessions the Eiiropean remains now only for short periods, and during this time he may be for some years on the hills, or at any rate in elevated spots. The old statistical reports of the army pointed out that the mortality in the West Indies augmented regularly with prolongation of service, and it may be said that, after all, the lessened sickness and mortality in the tropics is OAving, in some degree, to avoidance by short service of the influence of climate. But as the whole long service was constantly passed under the unfavourable sanitary conditions now removed, it does not follow that the inference to be drawn from the statistical evidence as to length of service is really correct. Eacts prove, then, that under favourable sanitary conditions (general and personal) Europeans, during short service, may be as healthy as at home, as far as shown by tables of sickness and mortality, and it is not certain that long service brings with it different results. It may, however, be urged that, admitting that a non-malarious tropical climate, j??er se, may not increase sickness or mortality during the most vigorous years of life, it may yet really diminish health. This practically is the oist of the whole relationship between climate and health, so tliat a convement division of the subject is into : (1) How far is chmate injurious to health? and (2) How far is it beneficial to health? _ In attempting to answer these questions, it is necessary to inquire wliat is known of the effects of climatic agencies on tlie frame. Tlie influences