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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
Man is not born, does not live, suffer, die in the same way in all parts of the world. Birth, life, sickness and death, all change with the climate and the soil … with race and nationality. These varied manifestations of life and death, of health and sickness, these incessant changes in space and according to the origin of man, constitute the special object of medical geography. Its domain embraces meteorology and physical geography, statistical population laws, comparative pathology of different races, the geographical distribution and migration of diseases.
(Boudin, 1848, vol. 1, p. xxxv)‘I'M FEELING UNDER THE WEATHER!’ – THE SEARCH FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ASSOCIATIONS IN TIMES AND PLACES OF DISEASE AND DEATH
The search for associations between disease, death and atmospheric, environmental and geographical influences has fascinated and perplexed physicians and their patients for many thousands of years. For at least five millennia, men and women have observed and recognised that patterns of sickness vary according to locality and season, and that certain attributes of the weather or the environment might be related to fluctuations and variations in ill-health and well-being. Over the centuries, people have expressed these beliefs using such aphorisms as ‘I'm feeling under the weather’ or ‘You'll catch your death of cold’, while the sick might be recommended to try ‘a change of air’ or a trip to the spas and seaside to ‘take the waters’ and ‘breathe in the ozone’. The airs and waters of the earth have been viewed both as a source of disease and as a therapy for the sick.
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