The reason of this is doubtless to be
found in the fact that they were better clothed, better fed, and in
every way more careful of themselves, than the _contadini_. Foreigners,
too, who visit Rome, are very seldom attacked by intermittent fever;
and it may truly be said, that, when they are, it is, for the most
part, their own fault. There is generally the grossest inconsistency
between their theories and their practice. Believing as they do that
the least exposure will induce fever, they expose themselves with
singular recklessness to the very causes of fever. After hurrying
through the streets and getting into a violent perspiration, they
plunge at once into some damp pit-like church or chill gallery, where
the temperature is at least ten degrees lower than the outer air. The
bald-headed, rosy John Bull, steaming with heat, doffs at once the hat
which he wore in the street, and, of course, is astounded, if the
result prove just what it would be anywhere else,--and if he take cold
and get a fever, charges it to the climate, and not to his own
stupidity and recklessness. Beside this, foreigners will always insist
on carrying their home-habits with them wherever they go, and it is
exceedingly difficult to persuade any one that he does not understand
the climate better than the Italians themselves, whom he puts down as a
poor set of timid ignoramuses.
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