Page 42 - Industries_of_San_Antonio

42 SAN ANTONIO-HER TRADE,

enjoyed elsewhere, but in all fairness to present the superior claims of our
climate to those of the others. The class of cases which cannot fail to be
cured in our climate; are, in addition to those already mentioned, every
phase of consumption, such as hurried and cardaic asthma, laryngitis, and
the hemorrpagic and pneumonic forms. Among the different classes we
have named, the cures are sometimes almost miraculous. According to
the disposition of the patient improvement may often be deterred, when
exercise and patience is necessary on the part of the afflicted one, though
all that is essentially neccessary is for the subject to act with reason and
let nature work out its own part. Wholesome food and proper care of
one's self are not the less necessary on account of our health-giving at-
mosphere. These combined with our climatic influences effect a certain
cure, if such is at all possible. Thousands who were once patients, and
now permanent residents of our districts can attest the truth of these as-
sertions. They are in our city and throughout all adjoining counties.
Really their gratitude to Texas and to nature, expressed to thousands of
friends and relatives, is one of the great causes which have populated our
soil so rapidly. The number of patients benefitted will increase in pro-
portion as the knowledge of these facts is diffused among the rest of the
world. The best medicinal skill is examplified constantly among us.
Physicians who have gained world-wide reputation elsewhere have estab-
lished themselves among us, where their abilities, their talents may have a
greater scope for benefit among the thousands who seek our section in
search of health. Everything necessary to the comfort and well-being of
the patient exists in plenty, as will be seen in the further innumeration of
home attractions. Then let us urge, in conclusion, "that you come—come
with your family, and come to remain in a climate where health, that
greatest of earthly blessings, is granted to all pulmonic invalids."

ARCHITECTURE.
The last ten years of improvement in this respect is not only astound-
ing, but, as has been said before, of such a nature as to totally change the
appearance of everything. It is no exaggeration to say that the resident
of those days, could he have slept this length of time, would imagine
himself surely in another stage of existence ; for with the exception of a
few adobe houses still inhabited by Mexican patriarchs, there is nothing
to call to mind the city of those days, with its muddy walks, its rough and
unfinished ditches, and occasional edifices of stone. Although architect-
ure as one of the fine arts had reached a degree of perfection thousands
of years ago, unsurpassed even at the present age ; the aborigines of
America had made no progress in this line to speak of, unless in Mexican
centres, of which we yet see the evidences of its degree of perfection in
ages past. However, this was not the practice of those in the interior of
the country, where natives lived and died probably without ever having
seen a structure even of native stone. No evidences of skill or beauty