Malachite

“ Their principal remedy, however, is powdered malachite, with or without lime-juice. Lime-juice is also used by itself, or with powdered “mubafo” or gum elemi, which is very abundant in the Mushicongo country. Poultices and decoctions [Pg 255] made of crushed “Herva Santa Maria,” and of various other plants, are also applied to the sores, which are protected from dust and flies by a piece of rag, or very often by a light shield made from a piece of dry gourd. Ointments are never made use of by the natives in the treatment of ulcers, and they are not much in favour with the Portuguese. ”

“ Sure enough, when you saw the shut doors and open windows of those empty houses, all white without in the sun and dark within, and not a human to be seen, you could believe almost anything. You can think how proud Malachi was. She used to get plenty of presents from the men who had no wives or children to care for—little silver and gold things as well as others. ”

“ When a man will not speak, will not lie to gain a case for his lawyer—or save himself, there is something! Now, listen to me, and I will tell you the story of Malachi. Then you shall judge.
“I never saw such a face as that girl had down there at Lachine in Quebec. I knew her when she was a child, and I knew Malachi when he was on the river with the rafts, the foreman of a gang. He had a look all open then as the sun—yes. Happy? Yes, as happy as a man ought to be. Well, the mother of the child died, and Malachi alone was left to take care of the little Norice. ”

“ The dwellers in a malarious region like the Terai (at the foot of the Himalayas) are miserable, listless and ugly, with large heads and particularly prominent ears, flat noses, tumid bellies, slender limbs and sallow complexions; the children are impregnated with malaria from their birth, and their growth is attended with aberrations from the normal which practically amount to the disease of rickets. The malarial cachexia that follows definite attacks of ague consists in a state of ill-defined suffering, associated with a sallow skin, enlarged spleen and liver, and sometimes with dropsy. ”

“ The Prophet Malachi says—"The day shall come that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud and they who do wickedly shall become as stubble, and the day that comes shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch, but unto them who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and they shall go forth and grow up like calves of the stall, and they shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet in the day that I do this, saith the Lord of hosts." ”

“ That was the beginning of 'Exit Malachi.' The man was clever and bad, the girl believing and good. He was young, but he knew how to win a woman's heart. When that is done, there is nothing more to do—she is yours for good or evil; and if a man, through a woman's love, makes her to sin, even his mother cannot be proud of him—no. But the man married Norice, and took her away to Madison, down in Wisconsin. Malachi was left alone—Malachi and Trevoor, for Trevoor felt towards her as a father. ”

“ MALARIA.— It is a generally received opinion that the greater proportion of the diseases of India is the consequence of malaria generated in the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter: that a certain ethereal essence, whether a gas or a vapour, a film or an aroma, is evolved by such substances, when exposed to putrefaction in moist high temperatures, which has the property of causing fever when inhaled, or absorbed externally. The germs of disease are so ethereal, that they have hitherto baffled all art and all science to identify them, either in air, earth, or water. ”

“ He would make many presents to him who would bring back the boy.”
“And what presents could he make?” replied Malachi; “the white man is poor, and hunts with his young men as the Injun does. What has the white man to give that the Injun covets? He has no whisky.”
“The white man has powder, and lead, and rifles,” replied the Indian; “more than he can use, locked up in his store-house.”
“And will the Angry Snake bring back the white boy if the white man gives him powder, and lead, and rifles?” inquired Malachi.
“He will make a long journey, and bring the white boy with him,” replied the Indian ”

“ There was much good sense and knowledge of the human heart in the observation of Malachi, who, although he was aware that all search would be useless, could not resolve to destroy at once all hope in the mind of the afflicted and anxious mother. ”

“ Campbell.
"The Angry Snake, sir," replied Malachi. "I had no idea that he would be in these parts before the meeting of the Indian council, which takes place in another month, and then I meant to have been on the look-out for him."
"But what have we to fear from him?"
"Well; that's to be proved; but this I can say, that he has his eyes upon what appears to him of more value than all the gold in the universe; and he's any thing but honest."
"But we have nothing to fear from one man," observed Alfred.
"His party ain't far off, sir," said Malachi. ”

“ Malachi then spoke to Percival in the Indian language; Percival listened for some time, and at last replied in the same tongue.
“What does he say, Malachi?” said Alfred.
“He says he will sing his own death song; that he is the son of a warrior, and he will die like a brave.”
“Why, the boy is metamorphosed,” said Captain Sinclair; “is it possible that so short a time could have produced this?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Malachi; “in young people a very short time will change them thus, but it won’t last long. ”

“ Now old Malachi has, I think, a solemn reverence for the Divine Being, and strict notions of duty, so far as he understands it—but as he never goes to any town or mixes with any company, so the rites of religion, as I may call them, and the observances of the holy feasts, are lost to him, except as a sort of dream of former days, before he took to his hunter’s life. ”

“ Pathology and pathological anatomy.—— The pathology of malarial cachexia is virtually, in the first instance, that of acute malarial disease. There is blood destruction by the direct action of the malaria parasite and of its toxins, eventuating in oligocythæmia and in the deposit of hæmozoin and of hæmosiderin (yellow pigment) in the tissues. The activity and persistence of the process lead to congestion which ultimately determines organic changes in liver, spleen, kidneys, and probably in the bone marrow. ”

“ The prophet Malachi, in almost his last words, has a magnificent apocalypse of what he calls 'the day of the Lord,' which he sets forth as having a double aspect. On the one hand, it is lurid as a furnace, and burns up the wicked root and branch. ”

“ The theory or theories of Macculloch,5 as expounded by himself, amounted in fact to this—that a poison, which may be called malaria, is generated by vegetable and animal substances whilst undergoing decomposition or putrefaction, and that to the presence of this poison may be traced most of the diseases afflicting civilized man. In a neglected drain or sewer he saw the cause of typhus, of agues, of skin disease, neuralgias, &c. ”

“ Malachi was convinced that the young Indian had been sent to intimate that Percival was alive and in captivity, and he resolved to wait patiently till he brought up the subject.
"Does not the cold kill the white man?" said the Indian, at last.
"No; the white man can bear the winter's ice as well as an Indian. He hunts as well, and brings home venison."
"Are all who came here with him now in the white man's lodge?"
"No, not all; one white child slept in the snow, and is in the land of spirits," replied Malachi. ”

“ The next morning, at daybreak, Malachi and Martin came to the house, and, with John and Alfred, they opened the palisade gate, and went out to survey the spot where John had fired.
“Yes, sir,” said Malachi; “it was an Indian, no doubt of it; here are the dents made in the snow by his knees as he crawled along, and John has hit him, for here is the blood. Let’s follow the trail. See, sir, he has been hard hit; there is more blood this way as we go on. Ha!” continued Malachi, as he passed by a mound of snow, “here’s the wolf-skin he was covered up with ”

“ Practically all Indians suffer from malaria, which is the main cause of the splenic enlargement and anemia so prevalent among them. In some cases the spleen reaches an enormous size, nearly filling the abdominal cavity, and deaths from a slight blow or fall, causing rupture of this organ, are by no means uncommon. Malaria is usually treated by means of profuse sweating (kilcabankil) , the patient lying wrapped in a cotton sheet in the hammock, with a fire burning beneath and drinking sudorific bush medicine. ”

“ I say then that such was the virulence of the plague in spreading from one subject to another, that not only man gave it to man, but this much more remarkable circumstance often visibly occurred, namely, that something which had belonged to a man sick or dead of the disease, being touched by another animal not of the human race, not only infected it with the disease, but killed it in a very short time ”

“ A reservation seems, however, to have been made in respect of the Oriental, or as some term it, the African, plague, a malady the most frightful to which man is liable. Writers of the highest order traced to a damp, hot, and stagnating air, generated from the putrefaction of animal substances, and especially from the swarms of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their death than in their lives, the fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors. ”

“ The hill people themselves seem to suffer little from malaria. If they ever do contract the disease they take no medicine, but fast and offer sacrifices to the local deity, beginning with fowls and going upwards through pigs to goats and at last to buffaloes, until either the fever leaves them or they realize that it is their fate to have to bear it. ”

“ The Indian again stopped and was silent. He knew by the words of Malachi that the wolf’s skin, with which the Indian had been covered when he was crawling to the palisades and had been shot by John, had been discovered; Malachi, after a while, renewed the conversation.
“Is the Young Otter of a near tribe?”
“The lodges of our tribe are twelve days’ journey to the westward,” replied the Indian.
“The chief of the Young Otter’s band is a great warrior?”
“He is,” replied the Indian.
“Yes,” replied Malachi. “The Angry Snake is a great warrior. ”

“ On my return visit to Sikiana I was troubled by the number of enlarged spleens I found among the people. Malakai was the first to suggest a wide infection of malaria, but I pooh-poohed. Where were the anopheline mosquitoes? Malakai disappeared and came back smiling. “Doctor, I’ve let them bite me. They stand on their heads to feed, and they have spotted wings.” He showed me several captured anopheles and saved me from being ridiculous in my report. ”

“ In unwholesome states of the atmosphere, in an atmosphere of malaria, which must necessarily pass into the body with the inhaled air, and being in the lungs must be absorbed by the blood, we naturally inquire by what means we escape the morbid effects of such malaria? The answer is:—the malaria is conducted out of the body as rapidly as it is introduced, by the emunctory organs—by the liver, kidneys, and notably by the skin. If the powers of the skin be weak, then the poisons are detained [126] in the blood, and disease is the result ”

“ MALARIA WORK AND THE HOSPITAL SYSTEM In the early years of our construction malaria was very common and gave a great deal of trouble. As I have explained before, malaria is caused by a small animal parasite which lives in the blood of man and feeds upon the red globules. The excretions of this parasite poison man and cause the fever and other symptoms which we know as malarial fever. This parasite is transferred from the sick man to the well man by the bite of the mosquito. ”

“ There are a number of minor disease godlings, some of whom may be mentioned here. The Benares godling of malaria is Jvaraharîsvara, “the god who repels the fever.” The special offering to him is what is called Dudhbhanga, a confection made of milk, the leaves of the hemp plant and sweetmeats. Among the Kols of Chaibâsa, Bangara is the godling of fever and is associated with Gohem, Chondu, Negra and Dichali, who are considered respectively the godlings of cholera, the itch, indigestion and death. ”

“ There had been almost no traders, and few foreign vessels came that way. But the very isolation of these atolls, plus Black Daniel’s scientific inadequacy, added to the weight of native ills. Among the plentiful mosquitoes we found the malaria carriers. One afternoon Malakai held out his bare arm and showed me a probing little insect. “She stands on her head when she feeds,” he said, “and she has spotted wings.” Anopheles punctulatus, sure little poisoner, conveying disease from the sick to the well. It was impossible to get anything like an adequate supply of quinine from Tulagi. ”

“ Human blood rarely contains more than a million to the cc. There is a multiplication of the organisms in the flea, so that when it defecates, thousands of plague bacilli are deposited near the puncture wound made by the flea when subsequently feeding on a man. The infected faeces are rubbed into the wound by the man in scratching the site of the bite, so that we have here an instance of a contaminative method of infection as contrasted with the inoculative method by the mosquito in malaria.
[194] ”

“ It is the most wonderful, perhaps, of all the instincts, or reasoning powers rather, allotted to them.”
“It is, sir; and I’ve often thought so,” replied Malachi; “and then to see how they carry all their tools about them; a carpenter’s basket could not be better provided. Their strong teeth serve as axes to cut down the trees; then their tails serve as trowels for their mason’s work; their fore-feet they use just as we do our hands, and their tails are also employed as little carts or wheelbarrows.”
“Pray go on, Malachi,” said Mary; “I am quite interested already.” ”