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
Science
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
For the rest, the whole of Egypt up to this latitude may be said to be
very healthy for Europeans, there being much less malaria than one would
be inclined to expect as a consequence of the annual overflowing of the
Nile; a circumstance which may, I believe, be attributed to the
generally neat character of the cultivation, and the care with which
every square yard of cultivable soil is utilised. Internal worms are,
however, extremely common amongst the natives, but care in the matter of
drinking water will render the risk run by the European very trifling.
Another terribly common disease amongst the natives is granular
ophthalmia, a disease easily acquired by contact, or indirectly through
the agency of flies, but Dr. Sandwith finds that it is extremely rarely
taken by Europeans, though soreness of the eyes from dust and glare is
not uncommon, for which he recommends the daily use of a little boracic
solution as a toilet wash. It might, however, be perhaps advisable to
protect young children by means of a veil when abroad, especially when
entrusted to the care of a native attendant.
_THE REMAINDER OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT._--Our knowledge of African
meteorology is necessarily in its infancy, and it is only possible to
furnish a few tables of widely distant parts of this immense area, which
may give some idea of its climatic characters. The whole of the northern
part of the continent is extremely dry, much of it being quite rainless,
especially towards its eastern side. Following on this is the equatorial
belt, a great portion of which is barely, if at all, explored, but which
seems to usually present the general characters of such latitudes and to
be usually blessed with an ample rainfall across the entire width of the
continent. Southward of the equatorial zone we again meet with immense
dry and desert areas, such as the Karoo, but here it is the western side
that is the more arid, none of the south-eastern coast being in any
sense rainless.
Malaria is extremely rife in almost all parts of the huge peninsula, and
in addition to this we have in “Blackwater fever” and sleeping sickness,
diseases which seem to be at present its own peculiar privilege, though,
fortunately, yellow fever is not as yet included in its list of dangers.
The low-lying country along the coast and of the great rivers is
notoriously unhealthy, such as the Bight of Benin, where, according to
the sailor’s proverb,
“There’s two comes out
Where three goes in.”
But inland there are considerable tracts of elevated country which
present climates by no means to be despised, and which will no doubt in
time, with the advance of civilisation, become eligible and healthy
sites for European occupation, and more than one example of climatic
conditions that appear decidedly inviting will be found amongst the
tables furnished below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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