AIR
—is the element in which we breathe; a floating (or fluctuating) fluid, with which we are imperceptibly surrounded, and by whose elastic property we are enabled to exist. A philosophic enquiry into, or definition of, the very air itself, is not to the purpose here; nor, indeed, without a demonstrative and practical apparatus, can its wonderful properties be perfectly understood.
Its various effects upon both the body and the mind of man, as well in sickness as in health, cannot be lost even upon the least sensible and least ruminative observer; who is in the constant enjoyment of those great blessings, air, health, and exercise; for he finds himself affected (and frequently like Pope's rustic hero, who "whistled as he went for want of thought") in different ways, and by every breeze, without knowing why: he meltingly submits one day to the SUN; he shrinks another from the cold: he is depressed, even to melancholy, with the heavy gloom and dense atmosphere to day; and elated, almost beyond the power of expression, by the exhilarating, temperate, clear and lucid sky of to-morrow. If then the spirits are thus not only fairly considered, but fully proved, the thermometer of mental sensations, upon which the air (or rather its change) is found to operate with so much palpable effect; who shall presume to doubt its physical influence upon the human frame, so far as is applicable to the introduction of disease, or the re-establishment of health?
Thus much it has been unavoidably necessary to introduce by way of proof, that the human frame being so affected by the extremes of heat and cold, damps or dryness, such proportional effects (though not probably in directly the same way) may be produced by the same means upon the ANIMAL world, who possessing no power of communication, we cannot derive information but by means of observation upon the original cause and relative effect. As for instance; if the air is too much impregnated with cold, moist, damp particles between the chilling showers of hazy weather, the body (particularly of invalids and valetudinarians) is much more disposed to, and susceptible of, morbidity, than in a more temperate and settled state of the atmosphere. This, proceeding from a collapsion of the porous system, occasions slight indisposition with thousands, who are sensibly affected by lassitude and disquietude, not reaching disease; whilst in others more irritable, it is soon productive of coughs, sore throats, fevers, inflammations of the lungs, and various other disorders. North winds are considered bracing, healthy, and invigorating, to good, sound constitutions; though they are always complained of by those of delicate and tender habits; and there can be no difference of opinion upon the fact, that dry seasons are more conducive to health and spirits than those of a contrary description.