Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Relation of Climate to the Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Tuberculous patients are sometimes puzzled by conflicting medical advice on the subject of climate in its relations to the treatment of their disease. It is not surprising that diverse opinions prevail. From very early times the cure of tuberculosis has been associated, more or less, with certain places, and, as Klebs says: At one time or another, almost any combination of known atmospheric conditions was considered to constitute a climate which had protective or cura tive qualities for consumptives. The reason for this is found, of course, in the fact that pulmonary tuberculosis is a chronic disease, depending for arrest upon a large number of factors, many of which are independent of atmospheric conditions and common to all climates. Another thing which has added to the confusion of ideas on the subject has been the search for immune zones, regions where tuber culosis is rare or absent, the inference being implied that such places offer climatic conditions useful in treating the disease. No region, however, has long continued free from tuberculosis after being reached by modern civilization. Remote districts became infected rapidly as soon as the disease was introduced. Thinly populated areas, what ever their geographical position, become tubercularized wherever cities are built and confining trades established. Latham states that tuberculosis is rife amongst the watchmakers of the high Alps. The death rate from tuberculosis among our native Indians is not appreciably less in those trib% which have always lived in the arid Southwest and other favorable climates. Neither the salts in sea air, the ozone of forests, nor the rarefied atmosphere of mountains are remedial in themselves; they simply typify an outdoor life. Physi eiaus are practically agreed that there is no specific climate for tuberculosis. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.