An extract from HM Consul’s Report, October 1889, at Nice states: ‘The Municipality has introduced improvements which considerably increase the healthiness of this town, and which, I believe, have so far been carried out in no other towns on the French Riviera. In the first place they have secured, entirely irrespective of the natural supply of water, an immense water supply, which is calculated at little less than 1000 litres a day per inhabitant. The drains are fitted with automatic flushers, placed at intervals of some 300 metres apart; which appear to give excellent results. Street gullies of improved construction have been largely provided, which, when kept full of water (which is done by means of the hose in watering the streets), effectually prevent the escape of foul air, while allowing rain and other surplus water to pass into the drain. These are superior to anything of the kind I have seen in England or elsewhere.’
Dr James Henry Bennet, in Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean, gives another point of view on the matter of sanitation: ‘In the small primitive agricultural towns of the Ligurian coast, and of the south of Europe generally, the want of main drains is not felt. All the inhabitants are usually landed proprietors. Olive and lemon trees, even in the sunny south, will not bear crops of fruit without manure, and where is it to come from in countries where there is little or no pasture unless it be from the homes of the proprietors? Hence, at Mentone and elsewhere, before the advent of strangers, the household drainage was everywhere scrupulously preserved, placed in small casks, hermetically sealed, and taken up to the terraces on the mountain side every few days by the donkey which most possess. There a trench was made around the base of a tree, and the contents of the tub mixed with the soil and the trench closed.’ For another page or so Bennet goes on to talk about drainage and cesspools, manure pumps, and dysentery.
Equally to the point perhaps is the advice given in the handbooks on hiring furnished apartments, in which ‘the general system is that the agent is paid by the owner. Visitors ought to see that all agreements are made in writing, and to mark particularly that charges for water, gas, porter, be included in the rent; and that a clause be inserted, that if any necessary articles of furniture be wanting, they can procure them at the owner’s cost, and that he pays for the inventory. All crockery, china, glass, linen, etc. should be gone over piece by piece, since, if on giving up possession there be the smallest crack or stain, the lodger will have to pay for the article as if it were new. Tenants are naturally expected to have all linen washed before leaving; but the cleaning of curtains and woollen covers is the affair of the owner.’
In a more general manner Murray tells us: ‘When Nice first became the resort of British residents, the salubrity and advantages of its climate were perhaps overrated, but at present there is too great a tendency in a contrary direction, in comparing it with other places adopted as a residence for invalids.’ Hare says that the place ‘is much frequented as a sunny winter residence, but is ravaged in spring by the violent mistral, which fills the air with a whirlwind of dust’.
Eustace Reynolds Ball in Mediterranean Winter Resorts wrote: ‘Considered purely in the light of an invalid station, there are several objections to Nice. Being a large city and the centre of fashion and gaiety during the season, its numerous attractions and amusements, offer too many temptations to the invalid visitor, and may lead him to neglect precautions, which may have a serious result.’ He quotes a Dr Yeo’s remarks that ‘whatever defects the climate of the Riviera possesses, these are specifically concentrated and aggravated at Nice.’
Let us continue to Mentone, where I spent the year of 1952, recovering from tuberculosis. In 1875 Dr Bennet wrote: ‘Until latterly but few of the tribe of health loungers chose Mentone as a residence. The Mentonians were at first all real invalids, glad to escape from the gaieties of Nice, as well as from its dust and occasionally cold winds. Many, however, are becoming attached to this picturesque Mediterranean nook. It is thus beginning to attract mere sun-worshippers, and a foreign population is gradually growing up, of the same description as that of Nice and Cannes … The inhabitants of Mentone are exceedingly gracious and cordial to strangers, and are doing their utmost to render the place agreeable to them.’
These ‘health and invalid guides’ discuss problems of sickness and disease in a way that suggests there were tens of thousands of hypochondriacs (or seriously ill people) in Britain who, having the money, were ready to go to the Riviera in the hope of a cure. People vitiated by a lifetime’s service in India, or those blighted by consumption in the damp climate of England (where the disease was endemic) or those needing to recover after the gruelling task of overseeing their factories in the industrial north, would look on the South of France as the sure place of restoration.
Reynolds Ball says: ‘In indicating the class of cases which receive benefit from a winter residence on the Riviera, one must first mention the affectations of the respiratory organs. Bronchitis, emphysema, laryngitis, the early stages of phthisis (especially those cases in which no important haemorrhages have taken place), all receive conspicuous benefit; and recognising the therapeutic value of absolutely dry air in all catarrhal affectations, great improvement is speedily manifest in cases of bronchial, nasal, post-nasal, pharyngeal and laryngeal catarrh.’
Those suffering from rheumatism and gout were said to do extremely well; rheumatism of the joints was almost unknown among the locals, although muscular rheumatism was occasionally met with. ‘The mildness of the climate and persistent sunshine, encouraging the action of the skin, produces an excellent effect upon the disease of the kidneys and liver, and cases of diabetes received marked benefit.’
In Mentone, according to Black’s 1906 guide, the Villa Helvetia is ‘a convalescent home for ladies not younger than 18 nor older than 40, who are received for 20 shillings a week, which includes everything except laundress and fire in the bedroom.’ In San Remo, just along the coast in Italy, the Villa Emily is also a home for ‘invalid ladies of limited means. They pay 25 shillings a week, which includes doctor’s fees, comfortable board and lodging, and wine or beer.’ The sanatorium at Gorbio did not take tubercular patients, and a full-page advertisement in Reynolds Ball’s guide, paid for by the town council of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, says, in case guests would be upset by the early morning coughing, ‘Consumptives refused in all hotels.’
Hare notes that English doctors, ‘seldom acquainted with Mentone, are apt to recommend the Western Bay as more bracing, but it is exposed to mistral and dust, and its shabby suburbs have none of the beauty of the Eastern Bay’. That was the side I lived on for a year, whereas Katharine Mansfield, who stayed in Mentone for a few months during the First World War in the hope of ameliorating her tuberculosis, chose the area suggested by Hare, and died of her affliction.
Dr D. W. Samways, in his Guide to Mentone, relates the following: ‘In one hotel was a young German lady, distinctly phthisical, who had lost a sister the previous year from the same malady. A young engineer also arrived, with indications of early pulmonary mischief. An American lady, somewhat seriously ill, completed the list of patients. After two winters in Mentone the German lady was sufficiently well to live in Berlin again, and later on I heard she had become engaged to be married. The engineer never needed to return, and I saw him in good health some years later. The American lady remained for several seasons in Mentone, but did not recover, though she considerably prolonged her life.’
Some of those convalescents who took walks in the environs were given a warning by Murray in 1881: ‘A very general complaint has been made against visitors trespassing in the olive-grounds and vineyards, in search of flowers, by which damage to a considerable extent is inflicted on the peasantry.’