‹‹‹ Vitr. 1.4.3 | Table of Contents | Vitr. 1.4.5 ›››
4Thus, not only in unwholesome, but also in salubrious districts, the summer heats produce languor and relaxation of body; and in winter, even the most pestilential situations become wholesome, inasmuch as the cold strengthens and restores the constitution of the inhabitants. Hence, those who change a cold for a hot climate, rarely escape sickness, but are soon carried off; whereas, on the other hand, those who pass from a hot to a cold climate, far from being injured by the change, are thereby generally strengthened.
4We may also recognize the truth of this from the fact that in summer the heat makes everybody weak, not only in unhealthy but even in healthy places, and that in winter even the most unhealthy districts are much healthier because they are given a solidity by the cooling off. Similarly, persons removed from cold countries to hot cannot endure it but waste away; whereas those who pass from hot places to the cold regions of the north, not only do not suffer in health from the change of residence but even gain by it.