In The Winter, But
Especially In The Spring, The Sun Is So Hot, That One Can Hardly
Take Exercise Of
Any sort abroad, without being thrown into a
breathing sweat; and the wind at this season is so cold and
Piercing, that it often produces a mischievous effect on the
pores thus opened. If the heat rarifies the blood and juices,
while the cold air constringes the fibres, and obstructs the
perspiration, inflammatory disorders must ensue. Accordingly, the
people are then subject to colds, pleurisies, peripneumonies, and
ardent fevers. An old count advised me to stay within doors in
March, car alors les humeurs commencent a se remuer, for then the
humours begin to be in motion. During the heats of summer, some
few persons of gross habits have, in consequence of violent
exercise and excess, been seized with putrid fevers, attended
with exanthemata, erisipelatous, and miliary eruptions, which
commonly prove fatal: but the people in general are healthy, even
those that take very little exercise: a strong presumption in
favour of the climate! As to medicine, I know nothing of the
practice of the Nice physicians. Here are eleven in all; but four
or five make shift to live by the profession. They receive, by
way of fee, ten sols (an English six-pence) a visit, and this is
but ill paid: so you may guess whether they are in a condition to
support the dignity of physic; and whether any man, of a liberal
education, would bury himself at Nice on such terms. I am
acquainted with an Italian physician settled at Villa Franca, a
very good sort of a man, who practises for a certain salary,
raised by annual contribution among the better sort of people;
and an allowance from the king, for visiting the sick belonging
to the garrison and the gallies. The whole may amount to near
thirty pounds.
Among the inconveniences of this climate, the vermin form no
inconsiderable article. Vipers and snakes are found in the
mountains. Our gardens swarm with lizzards; and there are some
few scorpions; but as yet I have seen but one of this species. In
summer, notwithstanding all the care and precautions we can take,
we are pestered with incredible swarms of flies, fleas, and bugs;
but the gnats, or couzins, are more intolerable than all the
rest. In the day-time, it is impossible to keep the flies out of
your mouth, nostrils, eyes, and ears. They croud into your milk,
tea, chocolate, soup, wine, and water: they soil your sugar,
contaminate your victuals, and devour your fruit; they cover and
defile your furniture, floors, cielings, and indeed your whole
body. As soon as candles are lighted, the couzins begin to buz
about your ears in myriads, and torment you with their stings, so
that you have no rest nor respite 'till you get into bed, where
you are secured by your mosquito-net. This inclosure is very
disagreeable in hot weather; and very inconvenient to those, who,
like me, are subject to a cough and spitting.
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