ce his
iconoclastic progress through the popular shrines of Hygiea on the
continent.

Malta is a famous resort for phthisical patients, although during the
winter and spring the weather is cold and variable, and in autumn the
sirocco is frequent. When a sirocco has blown for some days, it lulls
suddenly, and is succeeded by an equally strong breeze from the
north-west, contrasting violently with the former in temperature and
everything else. The extremes of heat and cold are as great here and
in other places in the Mediterranean as in London. In Malta, our
author saw five or six cases of bronchitis, which in a single month
terminated in incurable phthisis; and in two cases, six weeks only
elapsed between the first signs of the tuberculous deposit and the
death of the patients.

Madeira, a still more popular sanatorium for this disease, is a
complete delusion. Instead of the climate being essentially dry, it is
saturated with humidity during a great part of the year; and the
peculiar sirocco of the place is of a hot, dry, irritating nature. An
intelligent medical author, who had resorted to Madeira for change of
air, remarks, that 'very frequent and remarkable variations in a given
series of years, incontestably prove that Madeira is no more to be
relied on than any other place for certainty of fine weather, and that
it has equally its annual variations of temperature.... From what has
been stated by writers, a person might be led to believe that disease
was scarcely known there; but I am afraid, that were the subject
thoroughly investigated, as it ought to be, few places would be found
where the system is more liable to general disorder; while, at the
same time, I suspect that the average duration of life would turn out
to be inferior to that of our own country.'

Our author knows no place more unfavourable to patients suffering from
organic diseases of the lungs, than the far-famed sanatoria--Aix and
Montpellier. The atmosphere is pure, but ever and anon keen and
piercing, and the _bise_ and _marin_--one cold and cutting, and the
other damp--irritate the lungs, and excite coughing. Add to this, that
Provence is proverbially the land of dust, and, what is worse, the
land of the _mistral_--a wind from the north-west, which carries
stones, men, and carriages before it. 'For several days in spring the
climate may no doubt be delicious, although, however, always too warm
about mid-day, when suddenly the mistral, of evil