Title page of "Change of Air."
A trip to “recover one’s health” seems to have been something of a hobby in the nineteenth century. In the United Kingdom, Europe, and America, the health retreat to a spa, a seaside resort, the mountains, or the beach was a reasonably regular occurrence — for those who could afford it, anyway.
In 1831, “physician extraordinary to the King” James Johnson wrote Change of Air, or the Pursuit of Health to reflect not only on the need for such trips but an excursion he had himself taken and “…remarks and speculations on the moral, physical, and medicinal influence of foreign, especially of an Italian climate and residence, in sickness and in health.” (i)
Johnson writes with an almost lecture-like air, as if speaking to a group of medical students. As the appointed physician to the King, he must have expected a fairly wide audience and he adopts a fairly self-concious attitude, talking broadly and generally rather than specifically or on a case-by-case basis. He makes generalizations about the influence of environment on various sections of British society, including blanching of the skin, over-sensibility, and general lassitude and weakness. He comments at length on “modern society,” discussing the problems of modern life from a medical perspective as people are forced into living what we would recognize as a stressful modern life: working long hours, commuting, socializing in highly artificial environments, and so on.
The bulk of the volume is taken up by the travel notes of an extended trip on the Continent. This section will be familiar to anyone who has read any nineteenth century travel writing: the narrative is less a “We started here, went here, and stayed over here” series of events than an extended disquisition on various topics sparked by the landscape, complete with poetical quotations and classical allusions.
Johnson concludes his volume by discussing the effects of such a trip, discussing the environmental changes the traveller may expect between England and the Mediterranean or the recorded longevity of inhabitants of various regions. Change of Air is an amusing read even today; if nothing else, the preoccupation with finding every other country to be inferior to England while at the same time giving full vent to the fashionable sentimental reflections, sometimes puts the author through entertaining gyrations. Johnson’s solution to the deleterious effects of “modern society,” too, could only be applied by those wealthy enough to take a lengthy, expensive trip. While Johnson recognizes that modern industrial life can have a bad effect on worker and supervisor alike, his advice can really only be used by the supervisor; miners in north Wales, for example, would be in no position to take a several months’ trip on the Continent!
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