Health in the Arctic Circle

Health in the Arctic Circle

“Catarrhal conditions do not exist in the arctic, and septic bacteria are not native. In the summer months all life is forced and stimulated; men and animals quickly recover from the winter anemias, and there is just such a forcing of vitality as consumptives especially need. Patients here would be removed from all influences which favor an extension of the disease or militate against an improvement. The never-setting sun unintermittedly imparts energy; the atmosphere is dustless and sterile; there is entire freedom from danger of colds and other ills which cause setbacks. The sailing distance from New York to the extreme end of Baffin Bay is about half that between New York and Europe, and from the northern railroad connection at Sydney, Nova Scotia, to the arctic circle the distance is approximately that between Boston and Key West. The waters are usually smooth. From the zeros of the morning in May there is a constant rise of temperature until past the midday, or, as we should say, mid-summer, and then a decline toward the evening in September. During most of this long day the temperature is above the freezing-point, and rises in the forties and fifties after the snow melts in the spring, and the rocks are sun-warmed. The usual fluctuations in any twenty-four hours do not equal the changes which occur in the single hour following our sunrise and sunset. The question of a proper food supply in the far north is not radically different from the same question here. In that region the time required for a cure of tuberculosis is far shorter than in other climes, and so the summer voyage might suffice; at least it would lay a good foundation for a permanent cure.”