I have spoken of the Windward Islands as being especially desirable during the three or four months of the so-called "dry season," or from December to May, and of the whole West India Islands as furnishing desirable locations for climatic rejuvenation. The West Indies are especially interesting because communication is so easy and constant and relatively cheap; they are practically at our door, and it seems to me that they should be studied more. The Spanish Main also furnishes a great variety of especially desirable locations which can be used for the same purposes; but in speaking to the question of climate in "therapeutics" my object is not to advocate any particular point, but to illustrate the general subject.
When one has become rested by a some months' sojourn in a tropical region, and, as the season advances, goes north instead of sweltering in New York or other corresponding place, it would be well to go to the seashore or to the mountains, where he would receive another form of tonic to his already partially recuperated energies. In that way we should be using the climate as an essentially "therapeutic means."[1]
The larger number of invalids and tired-out people will continue to go to Europe for their change, and undoubtedly that is the better course for the majority, and, when properly managed, the "therapy of climate" may be sufficiently realized in that manner in most cases. I do not include those people who travel for pleasure only, or where change of climate is the secondary object, though in many instances even those persons do reap real advantage from the considerable change in food, air, and the surrounding conditions of life. There are many advantages to Americans in visiting Europe, not the least of which is the change of interests which new and different objects for contemplation furnish, and that fill the mind without taxing it to the temporary displacement of the business, political, domestic, or other cares and anxieties which are apt to hold our American mind in a tenacious grip from sheer force of habit. With three thousand miles of ocean behind us, it is not easy to talk "shop" with the neighbor at our elbow during the ten minutes some people devote to their lunch or dinner, and we are almost obliged by prevailing custom to take a reasonable time at meals and be quiet about it. I believe that the climate of Europe is no better than ours, and in some respects not so good. I am told that life-insurance statistics—the most reliable of all—show that the life expectation is somewhat longer among American risks
- ↑ For more detailed information in regard to the West Indian climate, I refer those interested in the subject to several articles in The Times and Register, by Dr. William F. Hutchinson, beginning in the number for September 6, 1890.
