BRITABILITY AND CLIMATE.

Mataura Ensign, 25 January 1911, Page 3

BRITABILITY AND CLIMATE.

There is a relation between irritability and climate, and the causes are subject of comment in the London 'Lancet.' "It is common in midwinter in these places for the landscape to lie quivering in the hot sun while a piercing wind from the cold quarter seizes every opportunity—the shade of a palm tree or a wall—to grip the unwary traveller in its fierce embrace to the detriment of his comfort, possibly to his health. The inexperieuc-. J laugh at the cautious resident who dons his overcoat in spite of what looks and feels like summer sunshine, but the wages of ignorance is often disease. There is one curious ef'fect of these bittersweet climates—.namely, a certain irritability of temper that attacks people after a few weeks spent in these surroundings. "Ask anyone who lias passed three months at Helouan or Algiers, Nice or Mentono, and, although he may not admit it as regards himself, he will readily concede the truth of this observation on behalf of his friends. Now, ( this irritability is no doubt an outward and viable manifestation of a disturbance of nervous equilibrium consequent on nervous exhaustion. The effect of these rapidly-recurring alterations of heat and cold on the nervous systems is strictly comparable with that of quick alterations of light and dark on the eyes. The bewildered vasomotor system does its best to respond to the kaleidoscopic indications, but fails, and ultimately reacts on the nervous system as a whole. "When this symptom declares itself it is time to move <tn, either further south, where the a variations of temperature are less marked, or to a higher altitude, where the temperature, being low, is more uniform. The latter is the better choice of the two, because no matter how far south one goes,'starting horn the Meditteranean, much the same difference obtains between the temperature in the sun and that of the wind. The only advantage attending the. desert air is that, being absolutely dry, the alterations are less frequent than at the coast, where the relative humidity is high."