By E. M. WIGHT, M.D., Chattanooga, Tenn., Late Professor of Diseases of the Chest and State Medicine, Medical Department University of Tennessee; Late Member of the Tennessee State Board of Health, and ex-President of the Tennessee State Medical Society.

During the ten years that I have practiced medicine in the neighborhood of the Cumberland Tablelands, I have often heard it said that the people on the mountains never had consumption. Occasionally a traveling newspaper correspondent from the North found his way down through the Cumberlands, and wrote back filled with admiration for their grandeur, their climate, their healthfulness, and almost invariably stated that consumption was never known upon these mountains, excepting brought there by some person foreign to the soil, who, if he came soon enough, usually recovered. Similar information came to me in such a variety of ways and number of instances, that I determined some four years ago, when the attempt to get a State Board of Health organized was first discussed by a few medical men of our State, that I would make an investigation of this matter. These observations have extended over that whole time, and have been made with great care and as much accuracy as possible, and to my own astonishment and delight, I have become convinced that pulmonary consumption does not exist among the people native and resident to the Tablelands of the Cumberland Mountains.

In the performance of the work which has enabled me to arrive at this conclusion, I have had the generous assistance of more than twenty physicians, who have been many years in practice in the vicinity of these mountains. Their knowledge of the diseases which had occurred there extended over a, period of more than forty years. Some of these physicians have reported the knowledge of the occurrence of deaths from consumption on the Tablelands, but when carefully inquired into they have invariably found that the person dying was not a native of the mountains, but, a sojourner in search of health. In answer to the question: "How many cases of pulmonary consumption have you known to occur on Walden's Ridge, among the people native to the mountains?" eleven physicians say, "Not one." All of these have been engaged in practice there more than three years, four of them more than ten years, one of them more than twenty, and one of them more than forty years. All the physicians of whom inquiries have been made are now residents, or have been, of the valleys contiguous to Walden's Ridge, and know the mountain people well.

Four other physicians in answer to the same question say, that they have known from one to four cases, numbering eleven in all, but had not ascertained whether five of them were born and raised on the mountains or not. The names and place of death of all these cases were given, and I have traced their history and found that but three of them were "natives," or had lived there more than five years, and that one of these was 57 years of age when she died, and had suffered from cancer for three years before her death. The two others died within six months after returning home from long service in the army, where both contracted their disease.

All these investigations have been made with more particular reference to that part of the Cumberlands known as Walden's Ridge than to the mountains as a whole. This ridge is of equal elevation and of very similar character to the main Cumberland range in the southern part of Tennessee, northwest Georgia, and northwest Alabama, and what is true of this particular part of the great Cumberland table is, in the main, true of the remainder.

Sequatchee Valley lies between Walden's Ridge and what is commonly known in that neighborhood as the Cumberland Mountains, and separates it from the main range for a distance of about one hundred miles, from the Tennessee River below Chattanooga to Grassy Cove, well up toward the center line of the State. Grassy Cove is a small basin valley, which was described to me there as a "sag in the mountains," just above the Sequatchee Valley proper. It is here that the Sequatchee River rises, and flowing under the belt of hills which unites the ridge and the main range, for two miles or more, rises again at the head of Sequatchee Valley. Above Grassy Cove the mountains unite and hold their union firmly on their way north as far as our State reaches.

Topographically considered as a whole, the Cumberland range has its southern terminus in Alabama, and its northern in Pennsylvania. It is almost wholly composed of coal-bearing rocks, resting on Devonian strata, which are visible in many places in the valleys.

But a small portion of the Cumberland lies above a plane of 2,000 feet. Walden's Ridge and Lookout Mountain vary in height from 2,000 to 2,500 feet.

North of Grassy Cove, after the ridges are united, the variation from 2,000 feet is but little throughout the remainder of the State, and the general character of the table changes but little. The great and important difference is in the climate, the winters being much more severe in these mountains in the northern part of the State than in the southern, and the summers much more liable to sudden changes of weather. Scott, Fentress, and Morgan counties comprise this portion of the table, and these have not been included in my examination, excepting as to general features.

In all our southern country, and I may say in our whole country, there is no other large extent of elevated territory which offers mankind a pleasant living place, a comfortable climate--none too cold or too hot--and productive lands. We have east of the upper waters of the great Tennessee River, in our State, and in North Carolina and Georgia, the great Blue Ridge range of mountains, known as the Unaka, or Smoky, Chilhowee, Great and Little Frog, Nantahala, etc., all belonging to the same family of hills. This chain has the same general course as the Cumberlands. It is a much bolder range of mountains, but it is vastly less inhabitable, productive, or convenient of access. The winters there are severely cold, and the nights in summer are too cold and damp for health and comfort, as I know by personal experience of two summers on Nantahala River. But the trout fishing is beyond comparison, and that is one inducement of great value for a stout consumptive who is a good fellow. These mountains are much more broken up into branches, peaks, and spurs than the Cumberlands. They afford no table terrritory of any extent.