lower character disturb, modify, and elevate the course of this great
westerly current, giving rise to the exceeding variability of the
surface winds, which, as is well known, may blow within the brief space
of twenty-four hours from all directions of the compass, at almost any
time and point whatsoever.

Changes of temperature, while essential in some circumstances to health,
may be, if of a certain specific character, infinitely damaging, and
such are the cold humid winds from the northeast with easterly
inclinations. These are the dreadful scourges of all the Atlantic slope
above the Carolinas, and there is scarce any portion east of the
Mississippi Valley free from their occasional visitation. In the extreme
southern limits, along the Gulf, and on the Peninsular State, the
poison, so to speak, of this wind, is so far modified by the greater
temperature of these localities as measurably to disarm it of danger;
yet, even in those latitudes, it is to be (during and after a prolonged
storm) avoided by all, and especially weak and enfeebled constitutions.

The cases of consumption found in these warmer climates have been cited
as disproving the heretofore accepted theory that this disease was
limited in range to the middle and eastern portion of the Union; and it
has been further assumed that the liability to its attack was as great
there as at any point further north.

These conclusions have little foundation in fact, as is well known by
all who have taken pains to investigate the question with that
thoroughness which the subject demands. The catalogue of ills belonging
to all warm climates is not only long enough, but likewise sufficiently
dreadful, without adding to it that scourge, which is the child of the
northeast winds, with its home in the changeful temperature along the