Health resorts for tropical invalids in India, at home, and abroad / by W.J. Moore.

Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health resorts for tropical invalids in India, at home, and abroad / by W.J. Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the rains the place is gay with many-coloured butter- flies ; while during the rains fire-flies abound. It is indeed at the commencement and termination of the monsoon that Abu appears in its most charming aspect, everything being delightfully green, flowers abounding, and every valley having its running waters, which are more or less dry during the hot weather. On the western side of the station is a lake nearly two miles in circumference, formed by a bund built across a ravine leading to the plains. The charming view of this lake from various points presents islands and palm trees, high mountains more or less thickly wooded rising on both sides, and a glimpse over the bund and across the plains of other distant hills. The mean annual temperature is 70° ; the extreme summer heat in the shade is 98° ; but this is compara- tively seldom recorded, 92° being the usual excess. In the winter, water left outside in a dish freezes, and hoar frost covers the ground. But the daily tempera- ture is very equable, and the station is in some degree protected from the winter easterly winds. The rainfall is variable, but averaged during ten years 64 inches. During August, the most rainy period, the hill may be for days enveloped in clouds; but this does not prove unhealthy, provided care is taken in drying clothing and bedding. The summer is certainly warm ; unless in comparison with the burning sandy plains below, as the elevation is only just sufficient to convey the resident above the hot winds, although not always above the fine dust they raise. Abu, however, affords a most agreeable change from the furnace-like hot- weather heat of the Rajpootana and Guzerat plains. For, although hot in the sun, the heat is generally tempered in the summer season by a refreshing breeze j