The Influence of Tropical Climates More Especially the Climate of India on European Constitutions

PREFACE,

THE following Essay, certainly, is not the mere offspring of a fertile imagination, or a good library. It has not been committed to the press, till after fifteen years of observation and experience, in a vast variety of climates, and with some unusual sources of information on the subject which it more particularly embraces. To this it may be added, that the Author has felt, in his own person, that INFLUENCE, and most of those EFFECTS of Tropical Regions, which he has here undertaken to investigate.

"Alternate change of climate had he known,
And felt the fierce extremes of either zone;
Where polar skies congeal th' eternal snow,
Or equinoctial suns for ever glow-
Where seas of glass, with gay reflexion, smile
Round the green coast of JAVA's palmy isle,
To where the Isthmus, lav'd by adverse tides,
Atlantic and Pacific seas divides."

Under these circumstances, he comes before the Public with respect, but confidence; neither wantonly provoking, nor meanly shunning, the eagle eye of criticism.

It will probably be suggested, indeed, that to tread in the steps of Lind, Clark, Moseley, &c. must be a dangerous, if not a presumptuous course. The Author does not conceive that he can be fairly exposed to any peril or censure in

these respects, unless he either rashly opposes or servilely copies his illustrious predecessors.

He believes his greatest enemies will not accuse him of the latter, and to the former he will not plead guilty, for the following reasons :— First, because his knowledge is derived from sources equally as good and authentic as theirs

-OBSERVATION AND PERSONAL SUFFERING. Secondly, as he took the pains to observe, so has he claimed the right to think, for himself; determined never to succumb to any doctrines or opinions, whatever might be their authorities, when they clashed with the evidence of his own

senses.

This independence will, no doubt, be branded with the opprobrious title of arrogance, especially as he has sometimes, while exposing the errors, indulged himself in a smile at the follies or inconsistencies of certain eminent characters, whose dogmas he found to be far from infallible, however currently they pass among those who have neither the opportunity nor inclination to put them to the experimentum crucis.

On this head, therefore, he is prepared to receive his full share of obloquy; perfectly indifferent whether it come in a roaring torrent, or in the most insignificant stream. It may sweep away the airy fabrics of imagination or theory-it will idly rave against the rocky edifice of facts. On the latter, he has patiently expended his time, and exercised his talentson it rest all his hopes. In the overthrow of the former, [which, however, are generally under protection of the latter] he may regret the fall of a fanciful pavilion, rather than the loss of a useful mansion.

In attempting to extend the utility of his Essay beyond the contracted sphere of medical perusal, [without derogating, however, from the dignity of a philosophical discussion] he can cite the precedent of almost every writer on Tropical Climates. Indeed, the necessity of such a plan will be rendered evident by the following passage from Dr. Balfour, whose situation, at the Head of the Medical Department in Bengal, gave him ample opportunities of forming a correct judgment on the point in question.

Speaking of the army officers in the East Indies, he remarks, that "being constantly em"ployed, during the first years of their service, "in the most unhealthy corners of the country, "remote from medical assistance, their success, "reputation, health, and lives, and the lives of all "around them, depend often on the MEDICAL "SKILL which they may have acquired."*

Now, it is very singular, that notwithstanding the extensive medical establishments of the India Company in the East, and the known ability which very generally characterizes their officers there, we have scarcely any detailed account of the climate and diseases of that vast empire, while volumes after volumes have issued from the press, on the climate and diseases of the West-India islands!

Where, for instance, are we to look for any modern account of the Endemic of Batavia? a settlement over which the British flag now waves, and whose very name is associated, in the European mind, with sickness and death!

* Preface to Treatise on Sol-lumar Influence, p. xiii.

-As for Hepatitis, it is scarcely noticed by tropical writers, though it has been termed the

Endemic of India," and we are forced to learn its nature and cure from a London physician, who never set foot between the tropics.

The last volume on India Diseases, [Mr. Curtis's] was written thirty years ago; and that many discoveries and improvements have since taken place, the Author of the present Essay trusts will soon be manifest.

Although the general scope of his observations bears on all tropical climates, yet he has directed his attention more particularly to the Eastern world, both because he was better acquainted with it, and less was written on its medical topography. But the western hemisphere has not been neglected. The grand endemic scourge [Yellow Fever] is carefully considered, and Dysentery is common to both

countries.

He flatters himself that the Prophylactic part of this Essay, which applies to all intertropical situations, will be found to contain a better Hygeian code than is detailed in any preceding Work on the same subject.

It is not the Author's intention, however, to have recourse to canting apologies for his intrusion on the Public; if he has neither corrected former errors, nor added any new and useful information to the original stock of knowledge, his Essay will soon meet the fate it deserves ;if otherwise, it will probably have its reward.At all events, he will neither deprecate the one, nor cringe for the other.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PRIMARY OR GENERAL EFFECTS OF HOT CLIMATES

ON EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONS.

SEC. 1.-Perspiration

2.-Sympathy

3.-Biliary Secretion

4.-Lichen Tropicus, or Prickly Heat

PART II.