Hot and Cold Weather
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
Summary
“Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They noiseless spill their influence?
This if thou canst.”
Herrick.“Sic vita.”
I believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New England. The very low average of health there, the prevalence of consumption and of decay of the teeth, are evidences of an unwholesome climate which I believe are universally received as such. The mortality among children, throughout the whole country, is a dark feature of life in the United States. I do not know whether any investigation has been made into the numbers who die in infancy; but there can be no mistake in assuming that it is much greater than among the classes in Europe who are in a situation of equal external comfort. It was afflicting to meet with cases of bereavement which seem to leave few hopes or objects in life: it is afflicting to review them now, as they rise up before my mind. One acquaintance of mine had lost four out of six children; another five out of seven; another six out of seven; another thirteen out of sixteen; and one mourner tells me that a fatality seems to attend the females of his family, for, out of eighteen, only one little grand-daughter survives: and most of this family died very young, and of different kinds of disease.
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- Retrospect of Western Travel , pp. 166 - 196Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010