But, descending at once from antiquity to our own times, let us compare the decrement of human life in the two MODERN BABYLONS, Rome and London. "On an average (says Hawkins) of the ten years from 1816 to 1826, the annual mortality, in Rome, was 1 in 244." That is, out of every 25 individuals, in the Eternal City, one was annually buried. In Naples the ratio of mortality is somewhat less-being 1 in 28 annually. Let us now look to London. The rate of mortality there is, annually, 1 in 40. In England generally it is 1 in 60. In Paris, it is 1 in 32-in France generally it is 1 in 40 (the same as London, and 20 more unfavourable than England.) In Nice, it is 1 in 31-in Glasgow, it is 1 in 44.-In the Pays de Vaud, 1 in 49, or 11 more unfavourable than England generally.*

These statistical facts substantiate, in the most unequivocal manner, the conclusions which an attentive observer would naturally draw from a survey of the inhabitants, an examination of the soil, and an experience of the climate of Italy—namely, that this portion of the earth is much less favourable to the health and longevity of man than England. But the question may be raised-is the climate of Italy injurious to strangers who are only temporary residents in that country? This question, I conceive, hinges essentially on the extent of the temporary residence. If the sojourn continues during a whole year— that is, throughout the entire range of the seasons, I think injury, of greater or less amount, will be sustained by the constitution-not perhaps in the shape of immediate or actual illness, but in the reception of those germs of disease which are afterwards to take on activity and growth.

The opinions which have been broached or entertained by medical writers, both in this and other countries, respecting the

population of Florence (one of the healthiest parts of Italy) is the same, at this time, as that of the easy class of Romans in the days of Ulpianus—namely, fifteen years less than that of the inhabitants of the aspersed climate of Great Britain!

*Hawkins' Statistics.

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medicinal effects of certain places of resort, should be received with caution, if not with distrust. If half the diseases which are said to be cured by Cheltenham, Bath, Harrogate, and other places, were really arrested in their course, we cannot help wondering that any one should be suffered to die in these islands. But however delicious may be the climates of Rome, Naples, Pisa, &c. we find that the greater number of medical practitioners, as well as English families, leave these interesting spots in the Summer, and place the Alps between them and fair Italy. Of those who remain on the Italian side of these mountains, all who can afford the time or expense, remove to certain localities, where the air is more cool, and the malaria less prevalent than in the cities and on the plains.

There are some, whose circumstances or inclinations induce them to remain permanently in Florence, Rome, and Naples. Very few of these last fail to exhibit the marks of a deleterious climate in their countenances.* Even those who enjoy the advantage of migration to Switzerland during the malarious season, acknowledge that they begin to feel the depressive and injurious effects of the Roman air from the time they cross the Apennines on their return to the Eternal City.

That people in health may wander through Italy, in safety, at all periods between September and June, I can have no doubt. Nor is it probable that even a sedentary residence in that classic land would be injurious during the Winter, with .common precaution against the climate. If this view of the subject be correct, it abridges not the rational pleasure of a tour through the most renowned country on the surface of this globe-a tour capable of affording instruction as well as pleasure and, what, perhaps, is superior to both-a conviction, on returning, that ENGLAND, with all its faults and imperfections,

* I have recently seen three or four examples of paralysis in young gentlemen who travelled through Italy in the Summer, and consequently were exposed to malaria at the time when it is most in activity.

M m

has little cause to envy the nectarious grapes, the savoury olives, the cloudless skies, or the scented gales of Italy.

It is not for me, in this place, to predicate the influence of frequent travels or protracted sojourns in a climate so celebrated, in all ages, for its enervating effects on the minds and bodies of its inhabitants-a climate which unmanned not only the conquering Romans but the conquerors of Rome—a climate which, by melting down, amalgamating, and moulding into Italian models, the rugged forms, the savage manners, and the ruthless features of the African and the Goth, of the Vandal and the Hun, has performed more astonishing metamorphoses than the pen of Ovid, or even the wand of Moses! Is it entirely beyond the range of possibility, that a climate, possessing such wonderful powers, should, in process of time, be adequate to the conversion of a blunt and artless JOHN BULL into a smooth-tongued and wily ITALIAN ?

SECTION THE SECOND.

MEDICINAL INFLUENCE OF AN ITALIAN CLIMATE.

We now approach a very important subject of inquiry, involving the health-perhaps the lives, of hundreds, or even thousands of our countrymen and women, annually, besides the happiness or misery of a still wider circle of their friends. The God of Nature has so deeply implanted the LOVE OF LIFE in every human breast, that no torture of the body, no anguish of the soul, can, for a moment, suspend its influence over the mind, while Reason bears sway. This instinctive principle of self-preservation, in man as well as in animals, is joined, in certain circumstances now under consideration, by another passion, not less instinctive, and scarcely less impulsive-PAREN

TAL AFFECTION.

When health is assailed, and life menaced in tender youth, the solicitude of parents is ever ready to make any sacrifice for

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warding off the danger ;—and it is at this critical period, that a remedial or preventive measure, difficult in its execution, hazardous in its result, and too often erroneous in its principle, is put into operation on a slender foundation of hope, and perhaps on a doubtful accuracy of discrimination.

Fortunately for the sufferings of British invalids, the question respecting a foreign climate in PULMONARY CONSUMPTION has lately been narrowed very much—since it is now universally acknowledged that, when the disease actually exists, viz. where tubercles of the lungs (constituting the essential cause of the malady) have softened down, and begun to appear in the form of purulent expectoration, a southern climate is not only useless, but injurious. The advocates of Italy or the South of France, now limit the utility of those climates to a somewhat undefinable state of the human constitution, termed―" disposition towards consumption"-" tubercular cachexy”—in short, to delicate health, without any tangible disease. This cachectic habit has been characterized by pallor of the complexion, subject to sudden changes-pearly whiteness of the eyes-languor of the countenance-dryness of the skin, or alternate dryness and moisture-quickness of the pulse-various derangements of the digestive organs-and a readiness to be put out of breath on taking exercise. In cases like these, I have little doubt that a journey to Italy, or a Winter's residence there, would be often beneficial to the general health; but there are very few who would think of going to a foreign climate, solely for the purpose of correcting a delicacy of health corresponding with the foregoing statement.

But when, to this condition of health, are superadded cough, pain in the chest, shortness of breath in exercise, and feverish symptoms, the important question then comes to be agitatedare there, or are there not TUBERCLES in the lungs? It is often extremely difficult to solve this question, after the most careful examination of the symptoms and the most accurate investigation by the stethoscope-notwithstanding the confidence with which some medical men determine the point.

Supposing, however, that we have strong reason to calculate on the existence of tubercles (which, unfortunately, is but too often the case)-how are we to ascertain the progress which they have made, between the size of millet-seeds and that of nutmegs-between induration and fluidity? These bodies may be perfectly inert in themselves, though of considerable magnitude and in great numbers, producing little other inconvenience than that of merely diminishing the capacity of the lungs for air by their presence or they may be softening down, and on the very point of bursting forth into the air-tubes, and thus exhibiting the fearful criterion of confirmed consumption—still without any alarming symptoms. The difficulty, then, of ascertaining the advance which these tubercles may have made, and the degree of inertness or activity in which they exist, is extremely great-and yet it is unquestionably upon an accurate discrimination of this point, that the propriety or impropriety of emigrating to a southern climate hinges. Without any other than the symptoms of general delicacy of health, before alluded to, or the superadded ones of a dry cough, &c. the tubercles may be so ripe and so softened down, that before the invalid passes the Alps or the Apennines, they may burst forth, and then the discovery is made, when too late, that the patient is in a worse climate for PULMONARY CONSUMPTION than the one which has been abandoned at so great a sacrifice! This is an every-. day occurence; and the chance of such an event is a fearful drawback on the benefits of a warm climate in affections of the chest.

But, granting that the pulmonary tubercles are in a quiescent state, (in which state we know they very often remain during a long life, and with little inconvenience) do we run no risk of their being excited into activity by those excessive atmospheric transitions which occur in Italy? I have endeavoured to shew, that the longer the intervals between these vicissitudes, and the greater their range when they take place, the more dangerous they are, and the more likely to kindle up inflammation in the chest, and thus accelerate the march of the tubercular affection.