Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.Giles, George Michael James
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Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.
Giles, George Michael James
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medical climatology; Tropical medicine
If the intending emigrant to foreign parts desires to find out something
of the conditions under which he will find himself, he may perhaps,
after much trouble, unearth some undigested data on the subject from the
Agents-General of Colonies, &c.; but he will find it far easier to
ascertain the amount of piece goods bought by the “Borrioula Gah” tribe
than the mean temperature of their capital; and, practically speaking,
the only library containing anything approaching an adequate collection
of the literature of the subject is that of the Royal Meteorological
Society, to whom and to their courteous librarian, Mr. W. Marriott, my
best thanks are due for their ready assistance in the compilation of the
present chapter. Owing to the very varied sources from which the
information has been drawn, any attempt at close uniformity of treatment
is out of the question, but wherever possible the data given comprise
the average mean, mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures, the
rainfall, number of rainy days, and average relative humidity for each
month of the year.
When possible, the figures given are the averages of several years, but
in many cases they refer to a single year only, being derived from
isolated observations or from series which have not as yet been
collated by a meteorological expert. No barometric data have been
included, as they have little interest for any but specialists, and a
study of those given will be found quite sufficient to enable anyone to
judge with what sort of an outfit he should provide himself. It will be,
for example, quite obvious that it is quite useless to take a mackintosh
coat to Wadi Halfa, if anyone will glance at the table given for that
favoured (?) locality. In some cases the maximum and minimum
temperatures tabulated are not the mean, but the absolute maxima and
minima, and therefore represent only exceptional experiences and not
what one may fairly expect. It must be clearly understood, too, that
absolute and mean data are in no sense comparable, as the latter will
always lie several degrees within the former; but in the present state
of meteorological science one has to be thankful for what one can get,
and this, in the case of most of the less advanced countries, is
remarkably little.
The plan of the following notes is to make a sort of climatic tour round
the globe, but it is obvious that it is impossible within the scope of a
work like the present to describe more than a few widely distant
examples, so that it is not even possible to include all our tropical
colonies; but it is hoped that those given will suffice to give a
general idea of what may be expected in most parts of the world. With
few exceptions all data are given both in the English and in the metric
systems.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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