This, however, is, to a certain extent, a mistake, as the recent
medical statistical returns of our army in India show that in the new
barracks, with more careful supervision as regards diet and clothing, the
sickness and death-rates are much reduced. Planters and others, who ride
about a good deal, as a rule keep in fairly good health; but the children
of Europeans certainly degenerate, and after two or three generations die
out, unless they intermarry with natives, and make frequent visits to
colder climates. This fact shows that hot climates, probably by
interfering with the due performance of the various processes concerned in
the formation and destruction of the bodily tissues, eventually sap the
foundations of life among Europeans; but how far this result has been
caused by bad habits as regards food, exercise, and self-indulgence, I
cannot say. Rapid changes of temperature in this country are often very
injurious to the young and old, causing diarrhoea and derangements of the
liver when great heat occurs, and inflammatory diseases of the lungs,
colds, etc., when the air becomes suddenly colder, even in summer.
The _direct_ influence of rain on man is not very marked in this country,
except by giving moisture to the air by evaporation from the ground and
from vegetable life, and by altering the level of ground water.
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