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XV. A Dissertation on the Climate of Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Matthew Guthrie
Affiliation:
Physician to the Imperial Corps of Noble Cadets at St. Petersburg

Extract

In a paper published in the second volume of the second decade of the Medical Commentaries of Edinburgh, I mentioned a design of endeavouring to trace the influence of a cold climate on the human body and its diseases, which should form a contrast with the many accounts published of late years relative to the effects of hot climates; and I likewise mentioned my having given a detached piece, some years ago, as a commencement of the subject, in the fixty-eighth volume of the Philosophical Transactions of London, which contains matter necessary to illustrate some parts of the following Dissertation.

Type
Papers Read Before the Society
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1790

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References

page 213 note * The title of the Dissertation mentioned above, is, The Antiseptic Regimen of the Natives of Russia.

page 216 note * As for example, the floating ice which covers the Neva, and so much facilitates its congelation, is formed in the Ladoga lake, where an inferior degree of frost can act; upon, the still water, to what is necessary to congeal the river, and on the first wind it is broke up and carried down by the current.

page 218 note * John Robison, M. A. Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh

page 221 note * Dr James Hutton.

page 223 note * As it may operate to the encouragement of Science, permit me to inform the Society, that when this respectable Philosopher so well known in Europe by his profound and ingenious writings on Electricity and Magnetism) had finished the education of his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke of Russia, he was advanced to the rank of actual Councilor of State, with a pension to support his new dignity, and was decorated with the red ribbon of St Anne, an order only bestowed on men of high military or civil rank. This anecdote shows how well the present Sovereign uuderstands rewarding merit, when it falls under her immediate cognisance.

page 234 note * Dr Guthrie solicited the learned gentleman's remarks and opinion on his paper. M. Æpinds is the oldest Professor of the Imperial Academy now alive, having spent upwards of thirty years in this country; and as Natural Philosophy was his professional line before called to Court, and his amusement since, his Excellency is of all others most able to judge of the peculiarities of our climate, and the fittest to put the stamp cf veracity on this Dissertation, its principal merit.