ABSTRACT
Immediately after graduating, Ramel travelled to North Africa, to the French concessions at La Calle and Bône, managed by the Marseille Compagnie royale d’Afrique; this posting was at the behest of his uncle Gabriel Ramel, who held a position with the concessionaires. Ramel was based at La Calle for six years. His patients were French national working at the concessions, although he did make observations on the well-being of the indigenous population. As medical services at the site were under a resident surgeon, he had time to engage in meteorological observations over the period he was there. The topic of medical meteorology was an issue of considerable study and discussion throughout Europe at the time, as physicians sought to relate disease, particularly epidemics, to climatic variations. He had evidently been prepared for such observations as he took to La Calle, a hygrometer, thermometer, and eudiometer. Ramel went on to publish his conclusions on the value of such investigations and the conclusions which could be drawn from them.
