the southern part of the West Coast of Africa—the coast of Lower Guinea. Around the Bights of Benin and Biafra (country of the Cameroons and of the Gaboon), as well as in the adjoining island of St. Thomas, it appears from the entirely trustworthy writings of Daniell, that phthisis is widely prevalent and very malignant among the negroes. As regards the French settlements on the Gaboon coast, that statement is fully borne out by the French medical practitioners; and we have an account to the same effect regarding its occurrence on the island of Fernando Po."—Hirsch, vol. iii. pp. 189–90.
"In the Western Hemisphere the inhabited regions within northern latitudes, and with an Arctic climate, offer a marked contrast to the corresponding territories of Europe, in respect to the great frequency of phthisis in them. In North Greenland that disease is one of the commonest causes of death. At a trading station on the northern shore of Hudson's Bay phthisis is prevalent among the scanty population to an enormous extent, according to the evidence of a practitioner who had been five years on the station; and there are reports to the same effect from New Archangel and the Aleutian Islands (Alaska). It is common also in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Canada, in the last particularly among the native Indians (Stratton)."—Ibid. pp. 192–3.
Just as regards malaria, so as regards tuberculosis, the resisting power of any race is exactly proportionate to its familiarity with the disease. The English, who have long dwelt under conditions most favourable to the bacilli, are more resistant than Hindoos, who have dwelt under conditions less favourable. Hindoos are more resistant than Africans, who, though they have lived in contact with the races of Europe and Asia, have dwelt under conditions very adverse to the disease. Africans are more resistant than the races of the New World, who, while dwelling under conditions equally
