George Edward Walton

“ It is not necessary to cite authorities to show that the prime need of a consumptive is that he shall be a great deal out-of-doors, that he shall breathe pure air, that he shall exercise, that his entire physical organization shall be invigorated. Is the climate of Florida fitted to do this? I answer, No! The climate is simply and delightfully soothing. Being so—being moist and relaxing—it will cause tuberculous deposits to disintegrate rapidly. Expectoration will be increased, and there will be no rally of the system to oppose this new call upon the strength. ”

“ Relative humidity is the tendency of that vapor, be it great or small in quantity, to leak out of the vessel and show itself on the outside in the form of mist or dew. Sir John Herschel says, "As a general meteorological fact, there is not merely a want of accordance, but an actual opposition between both the diurnal and annual progress of the 'degree of humidity' or 'relative humidity' of the air and the 'tension of vapor' as indicated by hygrometric observation, a seeming paradox, but one very easily explained." ”

“ Men, like children, continually cry for the unattainable. We would like a land in which a perfect June always prevails.
What are the factors in the climate of Florida? Heat, water, and light—warmth, moisture, and sunshine.
The health resort of Florida is the peninsular portion, averaging one hundred miles in width and projecting southward over three hundred miles, amid the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. ”

“ Are there no diseases of the lungs in which this delightful climate is beneficial? Undoubtedly; and it is the efficacy of the climate in this other group of diseases—the bronchial, often wrongly diagnosed as consumption—that has given reputation to the climate. The "taking of cold" in Florida is a comparatively infrequent event. Even when one does take cold it is only manifested by slight sneezing, and that is the end of it. There is no tendency to acute inflammation of the Schneiderian membranes, the extension by continuity to the fauces, larynx, trachea, and bronchial tubes ”

“ Instead of exercising freely and expanding his lungs as he should, the consumptive invalid will sit listlessly on the piazzas of the hotels, awaiting his fate. Hundreds are seen, wherever you go, so doing. Seldom do you see one attempting to exercise, and, if one is seen, he is moving in that sluggish and apathetic manner so characteristic of every one living there.
It is unfortunate that, of the thousands of consumptives who go to Florida, we can get no reliable statistics of the result. ”

“ Warmth is life, cold is death, and the medical study of climate is only an analysis of those conditions of heat which will best secure an abounding vitality in the healthy human organism, or restore a shattered organism to its normal physical relations. ”

“ These figures indicate a mild, equable, and sunshiny climate during winter for all that portion of Florida frequented by invalids, embracing a region on the east side of the State, from Jacksonville as far south as Palatka. For a country lying on a parallel with the Canaries, off the coast of Africa, they indicate a climate which in temperature approaches that of Malaga, Malta, and Algiers, but does not nearly equal them in evenness and unchangeableness, though, in point of clear, sunshiny weather, far superior. ”

“ For none do I know a land more delightful, than for him who, by long and severe mental activity, has exhausted the vital battery of nerve-force and disturbed the harmonious balance between the varied complex nerve-circuits. ”

“ WHEN one approaches this land, from the northward, in the winter season, having left the hills and valleys about his home covered with the cold, white mantle of winter, he is pleased and cheered by the green foliage. ”

“ For those in whom frequent colds have induced the condition of chronic bronchitis, I believe there is no better climate than Eastern Florida, and those in comparatively good health who suffer from repeated colds without other ill effects will find in that climate freedom from t the inconvenience. ”

“ Persons of feeble constitution, whether hereditary or acquired, will still be the subjects of its incursion, and the disease engendered by its presence will require the same treatment as heretofore, unless happily we find a remedy which will destroy these morbific germs in situ, and thus, by relieving the patient of the exciting cause, lead to immediate recovery. ”

“ But, when facts are so difficult to find, we must content ourselves even with a straw. It is much more satisfactory to thus have an indication from a populous center, than the rate from sparsely populated country districts, which, as is well known, are comparatively immune everywhere. ”

“ He then shows how the relative humidity is greatest just before sunrise of each day, and the vapor tension or absolute humidity is least; that as the day advances the relative humidity diminishes and the absolute humidity increases, till the maximum temperature of the day is reached, when absolute humidity is greatest and relative humidity is least. ”

“ Given—a peninsular land subjected to the burning rays of a semitropical sun and surrounded by an ocean of warm water, the average temperature of which is 77° Fahr. [4] —then it is not necessary to ask the Signal Service whether the climate be moist or dry. If they supplied us with tables of absolute humidity, they could only add to our information accurate knowledge of the excess of moisture. Every breeze that blows touches the face with the softness of a moist May morning at the North. The atmosphere is delicious, balmy. ”

“ The person will be little exposed to chilling of the surface of the body, which arrests cutaneous perspiration, congests the blood-vessels of the internal organs, and forces excessive work on the already damaged cortical net-work of the kidneys. ”

“ Sufferers from muscular and chronic rheumatism find the genial warmth of this region softens the unpliable and painful muscles, and loosens the rigid tendons, while the increased secerning activity of the skin removes the morbid humor, whatever that may be. ”