1812
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The relationship between the weather and health is a long one. It begins in ancient Greece with Hippocrates telling the physician to consider several weather-related factors in diagnosing and treating diseases.

Now fast forward more than 2 thousand years...to the War of 1812. The surgeon general of the army, Dr. James Tilton, ordered the physicians under his command to "keep a diary of the weather" and to file detailed reports on the effects of the climate on the health of the troops. It seems that more troops were falling ill in camp than were being injured in military engagements

One of the army physicians, and a future surgeon general, Joseph Lovell, reported on the adverse effects of the weather on the health of the troops stationed at Fort George, New York: He wrote, "We were encamped on the banks of the Niagara River. The surrounding country is flat, and the camp was deprived of the lake breezes. During the month of June it rained almost incessantly; while the latter part of July, and the whole of August were extremely hot. Thus after having been wet for nearly a month, the troops were exposed for six or seven weeks to intense heat during the day, and at night to a cold and chilly atmosphere from the fogs arising from the river. The diseases caused by this alternate exposure to a dry hot, and cold damp atmosphere included typhus and intermittent fevers, diarrhea and dysentery." Thus, twenty-two centuries after Hippocrates, the first systematic reports on American weather and climate were inspired by medical necessities. And it wasn't to be the last time either.

Thanks today to writer James Fleming, a professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. It is supported in part by the National Science Foundation