Mr. B. And is this account to satisfy me? why I am plunged deeper in doubt than ever by such testimony. No wonder that the physician should approach the subject of Climate with diffidence when he finds those best able, from experience, to appreciate its merits, so irreconcileably at variance with each other. In the next place, let me ask whether you advocate the advantages of a Sea Voyage?
Dr. A. Not unconditionally. Dr. Young has said, and I believe with much truth, that the greatest possible equability of temperature is to be obtained in a sea voyage to a warm climate; in which the variation will seldom amount to half as much as in the most favourable situation on shore, even on a small island.
Mr. B. The very condition which, of all others, you consider the most beneficial.
Dr. A. Undoubtedly, and if you can make interest with Neptune to push you forward with his trident, and persuade Æolus to slumber quietly in his caverns, lose no time in availing yourself of such advantages; but as long as the wind "bloweth where it listeth," I entreat you, my good friend, to remain on terra firma; depend upon it that experience will fully sanction this advice;—of the great number of patients who have been sent on such an errand, by far the greatest proportion have had the progress of their pectoral complaints rapidly accelerated during the voyage; remember the various kinds of physical injury and distress to which you must be exposed on board of ship, before you can reach a steady and warm climate, from bad weather, and different local causes which it is not necessary to enumerate;—four and twenty hours beating to windward are sufficient to counterbalance all the advantages that might be anticipated.
Mr. B. Why you must surely have been inoculated with the prejudices of Mr. Matthews, who tells us that the fatigue and discomfort of a vessel is much the same thing as being tossed in a blanket during one half of the day, and thrown into a pigsty for the remainder.
Dr. A. I never was more serious. If the weather be bad the patient has but one alternative, he is either half suffocated with smoke or an oppressive atmosphere in the cabin, or exposed on deck to cutting winds, rain, and cold, and to an air by far too free for diseased lungs; then again sea sickness, whatever may have been said to the contrary, reduces his strength rapidly, and if damp sheets are the bug-bears of land travellers, damp clothes of every description are unavoidable at sea, and which in stormy weather can seldom be dried.
Mr. B. Well, you will at least allow that the motion of a ship is preferable to that of a carriage on a rough road.
Dr. A. I will not even concede this point, and were you only to read the interesting case of Dr. Currie, I am sure that you would be soon convinced of the contrary.
Mr. B. The opinion you have now expressed is sufficient; I shall not be readily induced to make the experiment of a sea voyage; suppose me then, if you please, to have been already transported across the channel on a calm day in a Steam-boat, and tell me to what part of the continent I am to direct my steps, in order to find a suitable residence for the winter months. I take it for granted that you consider the English Climate, from June to October as salutary to natives as that of any country in the world.