ins to investigate the question with that
thoroughness which the subject demands. The catalogue of ills belonging
to all warm climates is not only long enough, but likewise sufficiently
dreadful, without adding to it that scourge, which is the child of the
northeast winds, with its home in the changeful temperature along the
upper Atlantic coast. It is quite true that cases occur in even tropical
districts, but they are the stray offspring of some unusual departure of
the cold and humid northerly currents. It must not, however, be taken as
a sequence of this proposition that any and all warm countries would
prove a sovereign balm and remedy; but, that there are a few localities
of this condition in temperature, where patients of the class under
consideration may reside with positive advantage, and not unfrequent
restoration to health follow, we both believe and know.
But there is so great a liability to contract some of the many fatal
febrile, and other diseases of hot countries, together with their
usually excessive humid character and greatly enervating effects,
especially on those who have been born and reared in cooler and higher
latitudes, that it comes to be a serious question for consideration
whether the chances of remedy hoped for in a residence at such places is
not more to be dreaded than the disease itself.
In what direction, then, can the invalid turn with any immediate or
ultimate hope of either relief or a permanent cure? We answer, that any
place where a dry, equable climate can be found, all other things being
equal, will give the desired relief and probable cure, if resorted to in
season, and if certain hygienic regulations be carefully and
persistently observed. The next question is, have we a climate answering
this important requirement, and, at the same time, outside of the range
of epidemics and fatal fevers; easily accessible, and affording, when
reached, the necessary comforts and aids incidental to a restoration? To
this we have an affirmative reply to give, coupled with some
modifications, and point to the Central climatic division of the
continent as possessing, in its dry elastic atmosphere and generally
equable temperature, the requisite desideratum.
Minnesota lies within this division, and, while upon the outer edge, is
still markedly under the influence of the prevailing climate which
distinguishes the whole of this middle area. Other sections within its
limits there may be, and, inde
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