Southern California Dr. IV. M. Chamberlain; RAYMOND HOTEL, Pasadena, California. NOVEMBER TO MA V. NOTES ON THE SANITARY AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF Southern California dv l/ W. M. CHAMBERLAIN, M.D. CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO CHARITY HOSPITAL, N. Y., ETC., ETC. . Read before the Section of Practice of the N. Y. Academy of Medicine, October 19, 1886 Reprinted from The Medical Record, October 30, i8£6 NEW YORK TKOW’S PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 201-213 East Twelfth Street 1886 NOTES ON THE CLIMATIC AND SANITARY CONDITIONS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.1 The increase and the diffusion of wealth, the extension of railroads, and the greatly increased comfort of travel, have made us a travelling people. For pleasure or for health, a great multitude are mov- ing in all directions over our vast territory. Fine hotels and sanitaria are multiplying at an equal rate. Such are found, distant from each other by only a few hours’ travel, all along the Atlantic coast from Mount Desert to St. Augustine ; all along the pine forests and sandy plains from Lakewood to Thomasville; and all along the mountain ridges from the Adirondacks to Asheville and Marietta. The slopes and parks of the Rocky Moun- tains in Colorado and New Mexico are as well provided, and even the far-off waters of Puget Sound are set with hotels which compare very well with the finest of the Catskills. Notably within the last few years this tide of travel has turned toward California, and during the last winter the southern part of that State was fairly inundated by it. For two months the Southern Pacific Railroad alone brought to Colton an average of more than a thousand west-bound tourists daily. There are five completed transcontinental railways now in operation, and two more in progress of construc- tion ; and there is good reason to think that the Pacific slope will be colonized and occupied at a rate more rapid than heretofore. 1 Read before the Section of Practice of Medicine, Nov York Academy of Medi- cine, October 19, 1886. 4 The city of Los Angeles, which in 1880 had a popula- tion of 14,000, claims now to have 42,000 ; and a similar, if less marked, increase is seen at several other points. The writer spent five months of the last winter in Cal- ifornia, travelled several hundred miles by wagon through some of its less frequented regions, and wras greatly in- terested in the physical and social conditions there ob- served. It was very evident that by far the largest portion of the travellers came from the prairie States of the West and Northwest. From Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Omaha, Lincoln, Kansas City, and the country about these towns, there seemed to be a verita- ble exodus. The motive was to escape from the long, harsh winter, from the snows and the fierce winds, and the mud, which there enforce a long imprisonment on all those of feeble vitality or impaired health. And the general result seemed to be a delighted aban- donment to the pleasures of an open-air life, amid novel and beautiful scenery, with unrestricted locomotion. The man from Winnipeg made haste to lay aside his furs on New-Year’s Day, and to roll in the breakers on the beach at Santa Monica; and the girl from Duluth de- lighted to ride or drive through the groves of sycamores, the avenues of eucalyptus, and the orchards of oranges. Among our fellow-travellers was one who had spent two winters on the Italian Riviera, one at Tangier, one at Cairo, two in Florida, one in Nassau, and was now, for the sixth time, returning to Santa Barbara. Almost everyone was ready to say that here was indeed the most attractive and the most salubrious of all winter resorts. Allow me, then, to ask your attention to the physical facts in the case. California is a very large State; Texas alone is larger. The area of California is about twenty-three times larger than that of Massachusetts. The parallel of 420 north latitude forms its northern 5 boundary ; in its eastern course it intersects the Atlantic coast a little south of Boston, crosses the south of Europe through Rome and Constantinople, and cuts the Pacific coast at Hakodadi, Japan. The parallel of 320 30' forms its southern boundary ; there are nearly eight hundred miles of coast between these two parallels, equal to the distance between Boston and Savannah—in fact, the thirty-second parallel passes near Savannah—crosses the north of Africa through Morocco and Alexandria, and enters the Pacific near Shanghai, in China. So far as latitude determines climate, then, California should have the same as that of Spain and Syria, which, in fact, it does in some degree resemble, but with impor- tant variations. It is remarked, I believe, by Von Humboldt, that the climate of the adjacent coasts of continents in the north- ern hemisphere differs, and that of the remote coasts agrees. Thus the climate of the eastern coast of Amer- ica corresponds with that of the eastern coast of Asia, and that of the western coast of America with that of western Europe and Africa. Some of these may be in- dicated by the rude outline map on the wall. The Kuro-siro, or Pacific Ocean current, corresponding to our Gulf Stream, issuing from the China seas, pursues a northwesterly course across the Northern Pacific and strikes the American continent on the coast of Alaska, which it covers with clouds and rains, as the Gulf Stream does the western coast of Great Britain, Ireland, and the Orkney Isles. It also raises the temperature remark- ably, so that the mean winter temperature of Sitka is nearly the same as that of Baltimore. The return current, together with a deflected portion of the original current, passes down the coast of Oregon and California, at a distance from the coast increasing as it goes southward. It is desiccated as it goes, by pre- cipitation. It gives Oregon from 50 to 60 inches of rain annually, Northern California from 30 to 40, and South- ern California from 10 to 20. At Point Arguello, having 7 now lost most of its force, it is shouldered off the coast, leaving the embayed shore of Southern California washed by the warmer waters of the subtropical sea, driven thither by almost uniform southwest winds, of little force in winter but strong in summer. The winds are mostly from the west along the whole coast of California—west and northwest in the northern, west and southwest in the southern portion. Thus, of 14,612 consecutive observations at San Diego, 878 were reported calm; 1,730 were reported north wind; 1,044 were reported south wind; 2,879 were reported easterly; 8,146 were reported westerly; and the mean average velocity 5.9 miles per hour, as compared with 7.7 miles per hour at New York, and 15.8 at Cape Hatteras. As the winds move inland, they lose force and humid- ity, and at the base of the foothills comparative calm prevails. The ratio of decrease may be stated as about one per cent, for each five miles of distance from the sea; a ratio which may be much varied by mere topo- graphical peculiarities. The relative humidity of the air decreases in the same way. Thus, at the seaside stations it is from 70 to 72, about the same as on our coast; at one station fifteen miles inland, 66 ; at one station twenty-three miles inland, 59. The mountain system of California divides the State into three sections, differing very much from each other. From Mount Shasta, in the north, 14,140 feet high, two chains at first diverge there, are nearly parallel, and then converge and unite. A system of parallel ranges runs from north to south along the coast, and is called the Coast Range. From fifty to one hundred miles inland another system of ranges, parallel to each other and to the Coast Range, is known as the Sierra Nevada. The two systems are united in the north by Mount Shasta, and in the south in San Antonio, San Bernardino, and San Jacinto. 8 The crest of the Coast Range may be about 3,500 feet high, with summits of 4,000 and 4,500 feet, and the crest of the Sierra Nevada about 8,000, with summits of 12,000 to 16,000 feet. The great valley lies between them, 450 miles long and about 50 broad, narrow at the upper end and broader at the lower. From the great mountain masses at the southern end of the valley a system of parallel ranges runs nearly due west, to be fused in the Coast Range, and south of this range is the triangular area of Southern California, separated on the north and east from the remainder of the State by lofty mountains, whose minor spurs cross it in a southerly course to the open Southern Sea. The general slope is about seventy feet to the mile, and it is traversed by many torrential streams, running in straight and shallow beds, full in the season of rains, and almost dry at other times—often fuller near the foothills than in their lower course, as the water sinks through a gravelly soil to reappear as springs on lower lands, or sometimes runs in underground cur- rents into the sea. This is perhaps a kindly provision of nature, for if it ran entirely upon the surface it might be mostly evaporated in the long, bright summers ; where- as, in fact, it runs underground, shielded from the sun’s rays, but still within reach of human needs and de- vices. The soil of this territory varies often and much ; strips of clayey loam, ranging in color from a friable chocolate to a waxy black, indigitate with strips of gray, gravelly shingle and shale, and there are many grades of mixture between the two; but all are very rich in organic re- mains, phosphates, carbonates, and silicates, derived from the tertiary rocks. It will be understood from the above that the drainage of the region is very perfect, there is little wet land, and no standing water. The surface, having different hygro- scopic qualities, will be damp or dry, but the subsoil is always porous. This rapid and complete drainage ac- counts for the fact that there are no paludal miasmas. 9 The class of miasmatic diseases is almost unknown. This statement I heard from all. The only military post of the United States in Southern California- is at San Diego, which, in its general aspect, would not seem a pre-eminently choice location, for sani- tary advantage, as compared with some others in the region. The report of the Surgeon-General of the Army for 1885 says of it: “The military post showing the highest rate of non-effectiveness from sickness was San Diego. This station is the sanitarium for the Division of the Pacific, and as such its exceptional rate is sufficiently accounted for. The general salubrity of the station caused its selection for the purposes indicated.” Surgeon Summers, of the post, writing of the period from 1866 to 1873, says : “In this vicinity a case of in- termittent or remittent fever is seldom, if ever, seen, un- less contracted elsewhere, and the tabulated report of dis- eases reads in part as follows : Enteric fever o Typho-malarial fever o Malarial fever or resulting conditions i Diarrhoea and dysentery 12 Other miasmatic diseases o Rheumatism 5 Catarrhs and common colds 4 bronchitis o Pneumonia o Pleuritis o Phthisis 3 Other respiratory diseases o This seems to me a remarkable showing. So far as I have been able to extend the comparison, it is without a parallel among the army posts as to these diseases, and it is certainly in strong contrast with the reports from the military posts in Florida, where the climate is in some respects similar. There are but two seasons to the year in Southern California, the wet and the dry ; the wet season, begin- ning in November, continues until May. During that period all the rainfall of the year occurs, amounting to 10 from ten to twenty or twenty-two inches. This usually falls in periods of three or four days at a time, and at in- tervals of from four to six weeks. From January 27th to March 6th of the present year there was no rain at Pasadena and Los Angeles. Appar- ently there is less rainy weather in the California wet sea- son than in our Eastern summer. Less rain falls upon the seashore than in the foothills. The cool and water-laden air of the ocean, when it first strikes the land, seems to be rarefied by the increased radiation and reflection, and the power to carry moisture is increased until it reaches higher lands or meets the cooler air floating down from the hills. Thus the mean annual rainfall at San Diego is between nine and ten inches, and at Poway, twenty miles inland, is from seven- teen to twenty inches. Occasionally, where from the local topography a cool current comes down upon the shore, the local precipitation is greater there. In drop- ping its water, as before said, the relative humidity of the air becomes less. From the small amount of rainfall the question of the water-supply becomes important. Nowhere has the whole scheme of hydraulic questions been studied more generally, carefully, and to better results than in Califor- nia. Mining, and, at various stages, most departments of agriculture are dependent upon an artificial supply of water. The country is fairly endowed with springs, which break out, sometimes in large volume, along the foot of the terraces and in the ravines. About them are located the headquarters of the isolated farms and ranches. Wherever there is an organized scheme of a fruit-grow- ing colony,-or other town, water for irrigation and domes- tic uses is provided by acequias, or aqueducts from the canons of the mountains, often built with great labor and expense. Mountain water, thus obtained, is generally very soft, clear, and uncontaminated. Sometimes it is exceptionally pure; at others it carries more or less clay and other more positive mineralization. 11 The distribution of the ground-water is peculiar and interesting. You may enter a basin-like depression in the hills, containing perhaps several square miles of alluvial plain. It may not be traversed by any stream; there is no visible inlet or outlet for water, and you wonder what becomes of all that falls on the long slopes which sur- round it. It has, in fact, sunk into the surface where it fell, and descended, to underlie the plain at a depth often of not more than eight or ten feet. Such plains, except in the rainy season, look dry and parched ; still they are set with great sycamores, evergreen live-oaks, and rapidly growing groves of eucalyptus, as well as orchards of fruit- trees. The young plants may require to be irrigated for a year or two, but soon their roots reach down to the un- failing streams below, and thenceforth they require no artificial water. After the third year the vineyards in such localities are full of lush leafage and succulent fruit- and the wells about the farm are full to within ten feet of the surface. The facts which characterize the climate are best seen by comparison. For that purpose I have prepared the rude chart, on page 12, and have taken the details from the Report of the Chief Signal Officer of the United States for 1881, with the exception of those for Aiken, S. C., which is not a Signal Service station. The figures for this locality I have derived in part from the papers of Dr. Geddings, whose able and interesting papers have done much to extend the reputation of Aiken as a sani- tarium ; and in part from the report of the nearest Signal Service station, at Augusta, seventeen miles distant. New York is chosen for one point, because it is our standard of comparison ; Aiken, as a southern inland, and Jacksonville as a seaside, sanitarium ; San Antonio, to represent the elevated Texan plateau ; Los Angeles, Southern California ; and St. Paul the interior Northwest. Other points—on the Florida coast, for example—might have been chosen, but not being Signal Service stations, the data are not at hand. 12 The first vertical column gives the elevation above sea-level. This is to be borne in mind for the compari- son, as it modifies all other conditions. The second vertical column gives the number of days in the year in which rain fell—the least appreciable quantity, namely, one hundredth of an inch, constituting a “ rainy day.” tipi i C>5 4*5 <* & j l| U' |l| <*>* f&r t ■ rff s “ | * S rs * tk 1 $ |s 11 1 1 5^* k £j ft ? 1 s $ ■1 § 1 1 §' 1 ELevctliorh. § 3 a s3 § to RairtsDciT/s. S^ te >6 §t Cloudiness. $ Nl 3 Humidity. *o § & £ JLain-fadl. & ■4> s» § is Jans. & Cub. * 1 0 Cu § $ Oi & ts