South Africa as a health resort : with especial reference to the effects of the climate on consumptive invalids : and full particulars of the various localities most suitable for their treatment : and also of the best means of reaching the places indicated / by Arthur Fuller ; together with a paper on the same subject by E. Symes-Thompson read before the Royal Colonial Institute ; reprinted by permission from the Proceedings of the Institute.
- Fuller, Arthur
- Date:
- 1889
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: South Africa as a health resort : with especial reference to the effects of the climate on consumptive invalids : and full particulars of the various localities most suitable for their treatment : and also of the best means of reaching the places indicated / by Arthur Fuller ; together with a paper on the same subject by E. Symes-Thompson read before the Royal Colonial Institute ; reprinted by permission from the Proceedings of the Institute. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![SOUTH AFRICA AS A HEALTH RESORT. By E. Symes-Thompson, M.D., F.R,C.P. [Read before the Royal Colonial Institute, and reprinted by permission from the Proceedings of the Institute.] That SoiUh Africa is a Health Resort of no mean value is a fact that shoidd be more generally realised. Fifteen years ago, when my first contribution on the subject was published,* I was able to record, as the basis of my work, the details of some twenty cases of disease treated for the most part in Natal and the Orange Free State. Experience since gained, supplemented as it has been by information acquired during a recent visit, is my justification for venturing to address you on the subject. On comparing the Southern with the Northern Hemisphere, the first point to which our attention is called, is this, that Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Cape Town, only distant about 34 degs. from the Equator, have a corresponding mean annual temperature— namely, about 63 degs.—with Naples, Nice, and the Riviera in from 41 degs. to 43 degs. north. At this latitude in the Northern Hemis- phere we are accustomed to regard an elevation of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet as necessary to secure immunity from consumption. But the elevation above the sea at which such immunity is obtained in South Africa is remarkably low. In the district of the Karoo we find a region characterised by excessive dryness of air and soil, where, at a level of less than 3,000 feet above the sea, remarkable purity and coolness of air are secured, * On the Elevated Health Resorts of the Southern Hemisphere^ with special reference to South Africa—Transactions of Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society Vol. Ivi, 1873-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2129771x_0103.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
