The climate of the island of Madeira : and the errors and misrepresentations of some recent authors on this subject, considered in a letter addressed to George Lund / by James Mackenzie Bloxam.

  • Bloxam, James Mackenzie.
Date:
1854
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climate of the island of Madeira : and the errors and misrepresentations of some recent authors on this subject, considered in a letter addressed to George Lund / by James Mackenzie Bloxam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    reverse of what was previously supposed. Moreover, it seems to be a matter of utter indifference, that such data are often obtained from extremely defective instruments, observed by per¬ sons whose habits and pursuits have not qualified them for the task; and who can scarcely be supposed to have had sufficient leisure to enable them to devote to it the degree of laborious and minute attention that it requires. But so it is, that persons who choose arrogantly to adopt and advocate any peculiar views upon a subject which is sufficiently obscure to admit of being so dealt with, and who are not seeking philosophically to inves¬ tigate the truth, require only data upon which to found their arguments; and, whether those data are true or false, is to them a matter of too little importance to be worth the trouble of inves¬ tigation. What the climate of Madeira really is, seems to be an inter¬ esting and much-disputed question. I fancy that the opinions of the medical men of the present day, in England, are founded in great measure, either directly or indirectly, upon Dr. Mason’s Treatise on the Climate and Meteorology of Madeira; and that certain advocates of peculiar views have, by one-sided quotations, contributed, in no small degree, to make that book convey impressions very different from what the author intended;—to say nothing of the high estimation in which Dr. Mason’s observa¬ tions seem to be regarded by those persons, and the very little credit which is given to them here, not by medical men alone, but by all persons whom I have heard speak of them, and whose knowledge of meteorology in general, or of Dr. Mason’s observa¬ tions in particular, render their opinions of any value. The editor of Dr. Mason’s book, page 199, suggests, that if visitors to Madeira would employ a part of their leisure in recording the state of the weather, the difference of opinion, now (1850) existing, as to the advantages or disadvantages of its climate, in certain cases of disease, would disappear. I cannot help thinking such records would contain a large mass of contra¬ dictory evidence, calculated to be useful to advocates of any views whatever, except the truth. The suggestion, however, is useful as an admission of the insufficiency of Dr. Mason’s observ¬ ations to settle those differences of opinion. It also furnishes a remarkable instance of implicit and exclusive faith in metcoro-