Paludism

“ For about three miles inland there stretched a belt of stinking swamp—one vast malaria hot-bed—and over this belt the straggling street meandered towards the low foot-hills beyond. At times it almost lost itself: but if you didn’t give up hope, or expire from the stench, and cast about you’d generally find it again leading you on to where you felt you might get a breath of God’s fresh air in the hills. As a matter of fact you didn’t; the utmost one can say is that it wasn’t quite so appalling as in the swamp itself. Mosquitoes! Heavens! they had to be seen to be believed. ”

“ The toil of felling trees, over whose heavy boughs and knotty arms the winters of centuries had passed; the constant danger from noxious reptiles and beasts of prey, which, coiled in the bush or crouching in the brake, lurked day and night, in waiting for the incautious victim; and, most insidious and fatal enemy of all, the malaria of the swamp, of the rank and affluent soil, for the first time laid open to the sun; these are all only the ordinary evils which encountered in America, at the very threshold, the advances of European civilisation. ”

“ Abounding with mountain ranges, and rocky hill-slopes, the true citadels of freedom, that commanded all practicable roads to the interior, while she had a formidable ally in the deadly climate of her coast, where the tropical sun, shining upon the ever-decaying masses of rank vegetation, breeds the fatal malaria which burns up the blood with fever, alternating with the icy “norther” that within an hour will often vary the temperature from summer’s heat to an almost Arctic cold. ”

“ It is a fever-stricken wilderness—the current not exceeding a quarter of a mile per hour—the water coloured like an English horse-pond; a heaven for mosquitoes and a damp hell for man. Fortunately, this being the cold season, the winged plagues are absent. The country beyond the inundated mimosa woods is of the usual sandy character, with thorny Kittur bush. Saw a few antelopes. Stopped at a horrible swamp to collect firewood. Anchored at night in a dead calm, well out in the river to escape malaria from the swamped forest. ”

“ Therefore it is proved that from 0 to 5000 feet above the sea there is no immunity from fever and ague, that over forty miles of lake water between a camp and the other shore are no positive protection; that a thousand miles of river course may serve as a flue to convey malaria in a concentrated form; that if there is a thick screen of primeval forest, or a grove of plantains between the dwelling-place and a large clearing or open country there is only danger of the local malaria around the dwelling, which might be rendered harmless by the slightest attention to the system ”

“ Avoid malaria.
"Neither must you plant in a low or moist place, because it will prove unhealthful. You shall judge of the good air by the people, for some part of that coast where the lands are low have their people blear eyed, and with swollen bellies and legs, but if the naturals be strong and clean made it is a true sign of a wholesome soil.
Guard against desertion.
"You must take order to draw up the pinnace that is left with you under the fort, and take her sails and anchors ashore, all but a small kedge to ride by, lest some ill-disposed persons slip away with her." ”

“ We may now profitably turn to the consideration of Malaria, a disease which is undoubtedly connected with the soil and which has its habitat in the soil of certain places. Malaria requires for its development decaying organic matter, a high or moderately high temperature, and usually an excess of moisture. Tropical marshes are the elected seats of malaria, but not the exclusive seats, for it is known that certain rocks and arid plains, as well as the sandy estuaries of rivers, are liable to be malarious. ”

“ Besides the localities enumerated, malaria is apt to be induced or intensified in a region wholly or comparatively exempt from it before, during the disturbance of large extents of soil, as in the construction of canals, roads, railways, fortifications, and dikes, rooting out of timber, preparation of virgin land for cultivation, etc. Vegetable organisms previously hidden and protected underground are thus brought to the surface and exposed to the agencies of putrefaction. Laborers engaged in such works and the neighboring inhabitants soon suffer. ”

“ The vicinity of Rome, with its swampy marshes and low-lying areas, has been one of these plague spots. The jungles and swamps of the equator and the coastline of Africa and South America and the valley lands of the Mississippi River have all been noted as most dangerous districts for human beings to live in. Even in civilized communities the ravages of the disease have, under conditions most conducive to malaria, been fearful, so that only most urgent requirements of mining, manufacturing, or similar material processes have prevented the obliteration of entire communities. ”

“ Thus, neither the earth (soil) , air, nor water, is in any way influenced by his presence, nor is he in general affected by these; there is no reciprocal influence for good or bad: he cuts down no forests, grows no wheat, or but little, makes no canals, drains no marsh-lands, poisons no rivers; the refuse of his dwellings, the excreta of such a population, are not sensibly perceived, even if allowed to rot and waste away on the surface—a practice prevalent with most if not all wild and uncultivated people ”

“ Indeed the causes already alluded to in a little time induced a fever, or something bearing more resemblance to a plague, which led to a scene of dismay and horror, far exceeding that in which the besieged had been involved. Contagion and disease, with all their attendant woes, quickly spread their baneful influence throgout our ranks. The poisonous exhalations, and marsh miasmata from the loathsome waters of the canals, combined with the fervid and contaminated air, generated and extended that deadly endemic, to which so many of our troops engaged in this campaign became the victims. ”

“ The flat coasts of Africa are often flooded over in the rainy season. This renders the climate very oppressive, owing to the humidity of the atmosphere. From the morasses found around the mouths of the rivers a malarious vapor arises, which is most destructive to health. Malarial fever, when it attacks Europeans, is much of the nature of a pestilence in its destruction of life.
This pestilential air along the coast region is supposed to be caused by the decaying vegetable matter brought down from the dense mangrove woods through which the rivers take their course in their journey to the sea. ”

“ It can only have been by countless ages of battling with malaria, that they have been reduced physically and morally to their present wonderful state or condition of withstanding successfully the climatic influences, so fatal to the white and more highly organized race—the sun and fevers of their malignant and dismal mangrove swamps, or the mists and agues of their magnificent tropical forests, no more affecting them than they do the alligators and countless mosquitoes that swarm in the former, or the monkeys and snakes that inhabit the latter. ”

“ It is a considerable stream even in summer, and in the rainy season it is a barrier to intercourse, caravans sometimes remaining encamped on its banks for several weeks, unable to cross."121 The soil of the plain is shallow, the rock lying always near the surface; the streams are allowed to run to waste and form marshes, which breed malaria; a scanty population scarcely attempts more than the rudest and most inefficient cultivation; and the consequence is that the tract at present is almost a desert. ”

“ The valleys of almost all the rivers are swampy and fever stricken; during the rains vast areas become inundated; in the dry season, away from the rivers, water is often lacking; wild animals constitute a real danger, especially to the wounded. The climate is tropical and very unhealthy save on a few high plateaus, and in certain hill districts malaria is endemic. ”

“ The exhalations from marshy tracts are recognized by their effects upon the human system throughout the world; and the fact that marshes bear a causative relation to malaria has been demonstrated in numerous instances by the disappearance of fever after thorough drainage and cultivation, and its reappearance upon their being allowed to relapse into neglect. The favorable effect of drainage and cultivation is owing both to the systematic removal of water near the surface, and most probably also to the absorption by the growing crops of the products of organic decomposition. ”

“ Gentlemen, in dealing with malaria we ought always to hold popular experience in high esteem, for we owe much to it. We owe to it the fact that we have been liberated from the paludal idea, and furthermore, that we have learned that it is often better, instead of trying to prevent the importation, for the most part imaginary, of malaria from distant marshes, to suppress its production in the soil under our feet or in that immediately surrounding us. ”

“ I imagine that the city will now never be entirely free from either; and the filthy condition in which the low tide leaves the slips, in which lie the small trading craft, must be a fruitful source of malaria, and an ever-exciting cause of epidemic. ”

“ We then resumed our march under most unpromising conditions. Thick grass and the humid vegetation rendered the black earth greasy and slippery, and the road became worse as we advanced. In three places we crossed bogs from a hundred yards to a mile in length, and admitting a man up to the knee. The porters plunged through them like laden animals, and I was obliged to be held upon the ass. At last we reached Dut’humi, where we were detained nearly a week, for malaria had brought on attacks of marsh fever, which, in my case, thoroughly prostrated me. ”

“ Far different is it with modern Europe and her races; follow them to tropical India, Africa, and America, and it will be seen that extinction seems the sure result of all their efforts, whether they unite with the native races or not. If they unite, their purer blood, as we may so call it, soon disappears in the stream of a darker population; if they spurn the union, climate, or as some would term it, malaria, speedily exterminates their race and name. ”

“ Here and there on the deck, wherever a little shelter could be found from the soaking dew, lay figures in many an uneasy attitude, brokenly slumbering and muttering through the helpless delirium of fever; for all hands save the second mate, myself, two Malagasy, and two Arabs, were desperately sick. The poisonous malaria which crawls stealthily to the Zanzibar anchorage out of the foulness of that most filthy town, aided by the treacherous exhalations from the soil everywhere, had stricken20 them down, and their only hope of recovery seemed to lie in escape from that dangerous vicinity. ”

“ Parched and sandy plains are intermingled with others of exuberant fertility, almost impervious from thickets of aromatic shrubs and wild flowers, in the midst of which tower up trees of that magnificent growth which is found only within the tropics. In this wilderness of sweets lurks the fatal malaria, engendered, probably, by the decomposition of rank vegetable substances in a hot and humid soil. ”

“ In this the fierce heat of the sun causes cracks and deep rifts in the earth, which give free vent to the miasm evolved from beneath.
Sandy plains, especially when at the foot of tropical hills and covered with vegetation, as the "Terai" at the base of the Himalayan range, are often infested with malaria. In other cases sandy plains at a distance from hills, apparently dry and not subject to variations in the ground-water, are equally sources of the poison. ”

“ Some writers state that the gravity of any given case is in direct proportion to the abundance of the eruption; others deny this. In Europeans an attack of dengue very often leads to a condition of debility necessitating temporary change of climate, or even return to Europe. In both Europeans and natives the attendant lowering of the resisting powers predisposes to other and more dangerous diseases, such as malaria, dysentery, phthisis, and so forth; consequently dengue, otherwise a benign disease, may become a source of public danger. ”

“ The organic germs that caused these diseases depended on swamps, stagnant pools, and decaying animal and vegetable matter for nests in which to be cultivated, and from such places they were conveyed by the air or water and so reached the fluids of the human body in which their further cultivation went on, to the great grief of your race. Now there is not a swamp nor any such thing in all the world, and nothing whatever is allowed to decay. Everything that grows is either utilized or cremated. ”

“ Those Plagues which come out of Barbary are the most pernicious and of longest continuance, of which kind was the before mention’d; whereas such as come from Greece or Syria are more mild and of a shorter duration; for this Disease is seldom or never occasion’d by Putrifaction of Air in Egypt, unless the Nile, overflowing the Country too high, leaves its Waters a long while on the Ground, whereby the whole Land becoming a corrupt and standing Lake, that by the Southerly Winds and Summers heat, may be ripen’d and made fit to send up infectious Steams. ”

“ While other great infections attack man usually where he is strongest and most numerous, malaria, on the contrary, lies in wait for him where he is weakest and most scattered, upon the frontiers of civilization and the borders of the wilderness. It is only of late years that we have begun to realize what a deadly and persistent enemy of the frontiersman and pioneer it is. We used to hear much of climate as an obstacle to civilization and barrier to settlement. ”