Aiken as a health station : a contribution to medical climatology / by W.H. Geddings.

  • Geddings, Wm. H. (William H.), 1838-1892.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Aiken as a health station : a contribution to medical climatology / by W.H. Geddings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of medicine sink into insignificance when compared with the brilliant discoveries which have marked the progress of modern physiology and pathology. Nevertheless, much has been done ; an immense mass of worthless material has been swept away; and the polypharmacy of our forefathers, who frequently combined fifty or more ingredients in a single pre- scription, has given place to a more rational system. The modern physician prefers to pin his faith to a few articles with the action of which he is familiar, appreciating to its fullest extent the value of the safe old maxim, nil nocere. Diminishing faith in the power of drugs to cope with chronic diseases has caused us to seek other and more reliable agents ; and the growing interest which is everywhere manifested in medical climatology augurs a glorious future for that hitherto neglected step-child of modern therapeutics. Climate is a complex affair, and may be aptly compared to a medical preparation composed of several drugs. Before prescrib- ing it, the intelligent physician will desire to know not only its component parts, but also the dose of each ingre- dient. Each climate is indeed a separate prescription, and in the following pages we shall devote ourselves to one of them, i. e., the climate of Aiken, or more rationally expressed, the climate of the Sand Hills of South Carolina, giving a full and correct account of each of the factors which compose it. These factors are, external configuration of the earth, tempera- ture, humidity, rain, barometric pressure, winds, electricity, sun- shine and ozone. EXTERNAL CONFIGURATION OF THE EARTH. The first of these factors, the external configuration of the earth, aside from its influence upon various other climatic phenomena, is all important as it involves the question of altitude in the treatment of consumption and other chronic diseases of the lungs—a consideration which has of late years attracted increased attention. The theory upon which those who advocate altitude base its claims is certainly most attractive and plausible, and there is no doubt that vast numbers are annually benefited by a residence in Colo- rado, on the high plateaux of Mexico, or even nearer home, at Asheville, N. C. The exact height which has been found to act beneficially varies, as we approach the equator, from 1,500 to 2,000 feet in our latitude, to 5,000 and more in the Andes. Aiken is not more than 600 feet above the sea, and, at that slight degree of elevation, the effects of dimin- ished pressure are scarcely perceptible; but its being so much