A Guide-Book of Florida and the South for Tourists, Invalids and Emigrants

by Daniel G. Brinton

There is an era in life when no actual disease is present, when the body visibly yields to the slow and certain advance of age. The mind, too, sympathises, and loses the keenness of its faculties. With most, this is about the age of sixty. It has long been noticed how fatal this period is. It is known as “the grand climacteric” in works on life. It has also been noticed that it is the winter months especially that are dangerous to persons at this age. The old Romans had this pregnant expression: “inimicior senibus hyems,”—winter, the foe of the aged. Modern research proves its correctness. An English physician, Dr. Day, calculating from nearly 55,000 cases over sixty years of age, discovered the startling fact that the deaths in January were within a small fraction twice as many as in July! Such an unexpected statement reminds us of that significant expression of another distinguished statistician who had studied closely the relation of mortality and temperature: “Waves of heat are waves of life; and waves of cold are waves of death.” With these, and a hundred similar warnings before us, we are safe in saying that in many cases entire relaxation from business and two or three winters in a warm climate about the age of sixty, will add ten years to life.

I now approach a delicate topic. A warm climate promises aid where medicines are utterly ineffectual. I mean in marriages not blessed by offspring. Most readers know how early females are married in the tropics. Mothers of fourteen and sixteen years are not uncommon. Heat stimulates powerfully the faculty of reproduction. The wives of the French colonists in Algiers are notably more fertile than when in their Northern homes. So we can with every reason recommend to childless couples, without definite cause of sterility, a winter in the south. I have known most happy effects from it.

CHAP. II.—WHAT CLIMATE SHALL BE CHOSEN?

This is a question of vital importance. An error here is fatal. Every person, every case of the same disease, is not at all suited by the same climate. Many an invalid who would survive for years, if he passed his winters in Florida, is sent to die in the cold, dry air of Minnesota; some who would find health at St. Paul, choose to perish at St. Augustine; there are some whose safety lies in the mountains, others who can find it nowhere but on the sea shore.

Neither patients nor physicians fully appreciate the extreme importance of deciding correctly here, and abiding by the decision. The invalid is apt to go where it is most convenient, or most agreeable for him to go. He goes where he has friends. He goes at his peril.

I have in mind the case of a young priest, the only child of his parents, loved by them as an only child is loved by the warm Irish heart. Before leaving the seminary, unmistakeable signs of consumption showed themselves. By assiduous care, he passed the winter comfortably, and as spring approached, his disease was checked. Every symptom abated. He gained in weight and strength. The cough nearly disappeared; the night sweats left him; his appetite returned. When summer opened, I said to him: “Go to the mountains. Complete restoration awaits you there. Avoid the sea shore. It is death to you.” I heard nothing more from him for two months. Then I was summoned in haste I found him with an irritative fever, with daily chills, with a distressing cough. He had been to the mountains for several weeks, and had improved so rapidly that he thought himself well, and concluded to join some friends on the Atlantic shore. He did so, and the result was before me. I then had the most painful duty of a physician’s life to perform,—that of informing a mother that her only child is beyond human aid.

And here I must say, with all deference to the faculty, that the ignorance and carelessness of physicians in reference to this matter of climate are at most reprehensible. Few of them make any distinction in cases. They send all consumptives to Minnesota, or to Texas, or to Florida, or to Cuba, as if in every instance what is sauce for goose is also sauce for gander. Thus it happens that the most eligible climates gain a bad reputation. They suit many, perhaps most, but they do not suit all. Go to Nice, Naples, the Isle of Pines, you will find invalids who unquestionably, were they at home, would be in a better place. This is chiefly the fault of their physicians. When a doctor recommends a climate, and yet is unable to tell you its temperature, its moisture, its prevailing winds, its seasons, its local diseases, its articles of food, its water, its mineral springs, its accommodations for travellers—beware of him. He is a dangerous counsellor. These facts the physician must know to advise wisely.

There are others which he must learn from the invalid himself. Constitutions are differently affected by climate, and so are cases of the same disease. Some climates are sedative and relaxing, others tonic and bracing; some are moist and soothing, others dry and steeling. Some constitutions are nervous and irritable, others torpid and sluggish; some have plenty of latent force which needs use, in others the vital powers are naturally weak, and must be carefully husbanded. In some cases, the symptoms are of an inflammatory, in others of an atonic character; in some, the secretions are scanty, in others profuse; in some, considerations of diet are of great importance, in others they do not enter; in some, the cough is importunate, in others, hardly annoying—and a hundred other differences might be added. The question is a complicated one. It asks for its solution the utmost care of the physician. It almost demands the trained skill of the specialist.

I repeat, therefore, that no climate can be recommended indiscriminately to all; that the climate must be selected by an intelligent physician who has carefully studied the case; that the locality which brings life to one, brings death to another; and, therefore, that having decided on a change of climate, it is of vital importance to select the right one.

The decision between a warm and a cold climate must be made somehow thus: If you have usually borne cold well, if you have not been subject to cold feet and hands, and disagreeable chilliness; if you are accustomed to out-door exercise in winter; if you are not subject to catarrhs, pneumonia, pleurisy, coughs, irritation of the pharynx; if you are not plethoric; if you are free from rheumatic, neuralgic or gouty pains which become worse as winter approaches; if your throat is anæmic rather than congestive, and your liver torpid; if your health is not already too much reduced to stand the icy winds of the north; if you prefer winter to summer, and the cold to the hot months; if heat oppresses you and enervates you;—then if you want to change your climate, go to Minnesota, to Labrador, or the Canadian highlands. But no, this is not all. Have you a fancy for any particular spot among those famous for salubrity? Is there a pastime or pursuit to which you are addicted? Do you love to boat, fish, hunt, ride, camp out, botanize, photograph? Indulge your taste. Such considerations have quite as much weight as many a medical reason. Then there is the question of money. If you carry the cares of business with you; if you have to pinch and spare on your journey; if you are worried about your expenses, the trip will do you little good, I have tried to give accurate accounts of the cost of living in the South, so that a traveler may know what to expect there.