seven meteorological stations in the State of Michigan, the interesting fact is at once apparent, that the maximum of both temperature and moisture was reached on the 1st of July, and was maintained with but little diminution through that month and August, while exactly the reverse was the case in reference to ozone; the diagram indicating the minimum of the latter during the months of July and August.

Five years since the undersigned was appointed chairman of a special committee, whose duty it was to ascertain whether it was not practicable to induce the chief of the Signal Service Bureau of the general government to make the meteorological records at the several stations more valuable to the profession in the study of etiology, by adding a record of the electric and ozonic conditions of the atmosphere; and also to test the practicability of enlisting practising physicians in different localities. in the work of keeping accurate clinical records of the date of commencement of all acute diseases, and reporting the same at stated periods to a committee for comparison with the meteorological records in the same localities. The results of the work of your committee have now been given in this and the two preceding reports (see volumes of Transactions for 1875-77). Our request made to the chief of the Signal Service Bureau was very kindly received, and some experiments were made, but such difficulties were encountered as to prevent the establishment of the additional items to the regular records as we desired. But it is only just to say that the chief of that Bureau, and all his subordinate officers, have promptly and kindly furnished to your committee copies of any and all records asked for professional purposes. Notwithstanding the failure to obtain the desired addition to the meteorological records of the Signal Service Bureau, their efforts in the other department of the work assigned have fully demonstrated both the practicability and great importance of establishing the necessary clinical records concerning the date of commencement of all attacks of acute disease. But at the last annual meeting of the American Medical Association a new committee was appointed to hold further conference with the chief of the Signal Service Bureau concerning meteorological records; and as the report of that committee will develop more full and systematic plans for the further prosecution of the whole work, the present committee respectfully asks to be discharged.

VOL. XXX.-11

EXPERIENCE OF CONSUMPTIVES IN COLORADO, AND SOME OF THE AERO-HYGIENICS OF ELEVATION ABOVE THE SEA; WITH CONCLUSIONS.

BY CHARLES DENISON, A.M., M.D.,

DENVER, COLORADO.

"Nature demands and gives-if we can find it-compensation for every drain upon vitality."-Lombard.

No apology is needed for presenting any facts which bring hope for the precarious lives of consumptives.

There is a common warfare throughout our land, forced upon ns by this persistent disease, consumption. By its insidious. ravages more lives have been sacrificed than by the shot and shell of war.

For nearly six years, in this comparatively new field, I have watched the struggle for life, of a little wing of this consumptive army," the skeleton brigade," as I heard a humorous invalid characterize it-and, at your request, I now report to you the conclusions I have reached by observing this running fight.

Had we started out six years ago, with the total number of cases collected, namely two hundred and two, and since kept them somewhat under continuous observation, we should undoubtedly find that more than the forty recorded would have succumbed to the enemy. So too might the survivors, though perhaps less in number, have shown a greater contrast between their former morbid state and their present approach to a normal condition; so true it is, that the constructive and destructive processes of nature never cease. Thus continuous observation would have shown us, that, on the principle of natural selection, those who had improved would have been reconstructed, while the others would have been redestroyed, so to speak, through the tendency to relapse, which belongs to this consuming disease. Candor compels us to admit that many of those who are heroically warding off an enemy that has a relentless grasp upon their

very sources of life, must yet succumb to this fell destroyer. Consumption is their doom, as it is of more people than any other disease which afflicts mankind.

Since the following conclusions are to show another, a somewhat brighter side of a doleful picture, and are calculated to bring to the Rocky Mountains many selected invalids, who may there become robust and useful members of society, it is well for me to assume the responsibility of these conclusions. This I assuredly do, trusting that the possible charge of an unworthy motive will not be made against one who appreciates the debt of truth a true physician owes to his fellow men and professional brethren.

This responsibility is further assumed, because unwarranted statements have been made by those who write from observations (?) made some thousand or so miles away, and whose deductions from an occasional wind-storm or a daily fluctuation of 25 degrees of temperature, etc., make them deny the healthfulness of Colorado as a resort for consumptives, no matter what the other constituent conditions may be.

This leads to the reiteration of some points touched upon in a former analysis of the attributes of high altitude climates.1

First. That cold is an attribute of stimulating climates, and brings favorable results as compared with warmth.

This is evidenced by Dr. C. T. Williams's excellent Lettsomian Lectures, wherein he compares the favorable results of 386 winters spent by 243 consumptives in different health resorts along the southern shore of England. He concludes: "These general results assign the largest amount of benefit to the most easterly stations, and follow a course exactly the reverse of that of the warmth of the localities, Hastings, the coldest, being at the top of the list, and Torquay, the warmest, being at the bottom." I append the following table:

1 "Influence of High Altitudes upon the Progress of Phthisis." Transactions of the International Medical Congress, 1876, Philadelphia.

Stations.

TABLE I.

Giving the average temperature, Fahrenheit, by seasons and for the year, taken mainly from army reports and the signal service observations (1 to 6 years), for stations on the Western plains and Rocky Mountains.

Second. That dryness is a most favorable attribute of the consumptive's resort.

The corroboration of this statement is so universal and complete, and so much in accord with general medical experience, as to need no elaboration here. But chiefly is it shown, by the same distinguished author's analysis of 593 winters, spent by 251 consumptive patients in foreign climates, mainly in the south of France. He concludes: "As to what classes of patients profit. most by dry climates, it has been shown, taken collectively, that in all forms and degrees of phthisis, the dry climates are most likely to arrest the disease. As to the desirability of moist climates for consumptive patients, the evidence is decidedly against their use in the treatment of ordinary chronic phthisis. The addition of warmth only makes the damp tell more unfavorably, though a strong saline element and invigorating breeze do something to counteract the humid influence.