Inland climates vary in temperature and humidity. As a rule they are drier than coast climates. This is modified, however, by the proximity of large bodies of water. The dry warm climate is of value to delicate or elderly people, or to those in a temporarily weakened state. It is also suitable for pulmonary tuber culosis in many cases, chronic bronchitis, rheumatism, cardiac and renal diseases. It is the climate of deserts such as of Egypt, the lower regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the pine belts of some of our States. It is rich in ozone, the air is pure, there is an abundance of light and warmth. Prevailing violent winds and the consequent presence of dust offer a disadvantage.
Dry and cold climates of low levels may be of . advantage to certain persons with good resisting power, since to some individuals cold acts as a stimulant and tonic and increases carbon dioxide output. The climate of highcr altitudes is dependent also upon the surround ing country and nearness to ocean or mountain ranges. Its advantages for tuberculosis lie in the purity of the air, greater opportunity for direct exposure to sunlight and its stirnulation through quickened respiration and circulation to increase in red blood corpuscles. There is at the same time lessened proteid metabolism which therefore increases the storage in the tissues. The increased activity put upon the circulatory and respiratory organs makes such climate unsuitable in valvular disease of the heart and rapidly advancing pulmonary disease. Medium altitudes are usually chosen for san atoria for tuberculosis. Many of these places, because of latitude and dryness of climate, afford most of the advantages of the higher altitudes. Tuberculosis of long standing with much expectoration seems to do best in a warmer atmosphere not too far from the sea, such as the climate of Egypt, or of Arizona.
Moderately moist and cold climates are not to be recommended therapeutically, though various resorts have certain advantages in op portunity for change, accessibility in being near large centres of population, and afford amuse ments, games, etc., with good regimen for those in need of rest. The moist, low, warm, inland climate is the poorest in therapeutic value. It is enervating, depressing and mosquito ridden, hence malarious and noxious in many particulars.
Such a variety of climatic influences and effects serves principally to emphasize. the individual difference of response. This is evident not only in the special disease com plex which has been built up and seeks its peculiar relief ; it lies also in the symbolic or psychic value which each climatic element in environment has to that particular individual in his expression of himself in relation to his surroundings and his success or failure attained thereby. Hence the problem becomes one not alone of better understanding of climatic con ditions and the elements which constitute them, but far more in appreciating and lmowing the meaning and value of individual effort toward adaptation expressed through health and disease and the part in this greater whole which the elements of climate play. This manifests itself in individual difference of response to the same climatic factors and in the difference in ability to extract from this portion of en vironment useful material for creative func tional activity, which is health, or that imper fect compromise between environment and antagonistic individual tendencies which results in disease symptoms and finally death.