[2] Medical authors of the highest repute are exceedingly vague in their ideas respecting the nature of malaria; nor will it ever be otherwise until the question be taken up by the strictly scientific. Thus, Sir John Forbes says, in his “Holiday:”—“As the unknown thing which we term malaria or miasma of marshes, under certain circumstances gives rise at one time to simple ague, at another to a fatal remittent fever, &c.; and produces at times a morbid enlargement of the spleen, at others diseases of the liver, &c.; so I can imagine that some other malaria, or unknown thing or influence of local origin, may be the cause of ordinary bronchocele, of goitre of the Alps, and also of cretinism.”
From the 1st of August to December the author hunted and waded through the marshes of Belgium and Holland in quest of water-fowl; his impunity from fever may be in part ascribed to a hardy training in early life.
[3] Typhus, now subdivided into two—namely, the true typhus and typhoid fever.
[4] Quetelet, “Sur l’Homme.”
[5] The late Dr. Macculloch was a distinguished geologist in the employment of Government, representing in himself the department which has now swelled out into the Metropolitan School of Practical Geology, the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn-street, the geological department in connexion with the Ordnance, &c. &c. He resided mostly in London, and moved in the best circles. Though a strictly scientific man, he was a professor also of the conjectural art, having been educated as a medical man. Soon after publishing his first essays on malaria, thrown out as feelers to the profession and the public, he had his misgivings as to the safety of the course he was pursuing. To denounce open sewers, undrained streets, untrapped cesspools, and overflowing dead-wells, was clearly an attack on the proprietors of London houses; and he called one morning in great haste on a distinguished barrister, to consult him as to the possibility of a passage in one of his essays being construed into a ground for an action for libel! How changed now are the views of society in respect of all such matters.
[6] See the admirable speech of Mr. Disraeli in his place in Parliament, on the condition of the Thames.
[7] It is right to observe that the unpleasant odour from the Thames, which during the month of June and part of July of the present year so disturbed the olfactory nerves of the Londoners, ceased at once so soon as the Bill for the purification of the Thames passed both Houses of Parliament. What connexion this had with the causes of the odour, and how these odours were so opportunely called forth and so quietly dismissed, I leave to be conjectured by the thoughtful of all classes. At this moment—August, 1858—during the most intense heat, the river is as sweet and fresh as a mountain stream, and has continued so ever since. Some are disposed to ascribe the cessation of the odours (for the stream is not in any way purified) to the throwing of quick-lime into the lower sections of the principal sewers; but if a remedy so simple as this was to be found in such a process, why was it not employed in June and July? It is only the unobserving who are surprised at such things, and who have not happened to observe what follows the spreading of an ancient cesspool over the fields by the road-side, or pouring its contents into a comparatively small river. The Thames is a comparatively small river, and the effects of pouring into it, at a convenient and suitable time (the dog-days, Parliament sitting, &c.), the contents of half-a-dozen cesspools of fifty years’ standing, undiluted and at once, would most assuredly give rise to results such as took place in London in June and July. The plot was a very nasty one—it might easily have been traced and the plotters detected: the sewer-makers, under the direction, no doubt, of the various boards, were very active in various quarters; and, not to mention other places, the main street of Hackney, for instance, for nearly a whole day, was by such means rendered quite unbearable.
[8] The Walcheren expedition.
[9] Rapid changes in the barometric pressure of the atmosphere strongly affect some persons, but the malaise caused does not seem to be of a permanent character. In the spring, in Britain, when north-easterly winds prevail, the amount of skin disease, rheumatism, neuralgia, &c., is sufficiently remarkable, and the blights they cause in plants is a fact known to all. In a work published by Mulder (“Water en Miht,” Amsterdam, p. 181), we find it mentioned that Van Swinden investigated the mutations of atmospheric pressure as a cause of sickness, and arrived at the conclusion that a low pressure was not the cause of sickness and fever. He remarked that although there had been many years in which much sickness prevailed, seemingly connected with hot and dry weather, the barometer had varied but little. Thus, at Haarlem, in the period between 1755 and 1780, the maximum was 30·9, the minimum or lowest, 28·0. The summer of 1779 was extremely hot, and a fever epidemic appeared which continued for three years. It was ascribed to the draining of several polders. Several learned societies made reports on the subject of this fever, but they elicited no new facts. It was generally agreed that the deeper the mud and turf containing vegetable matter were under water, the less was the sickness resulting from the draining. A Mynheer Driessen called public attention to the circumstance that on the coasts of Holland there were many places where animal and vegetable matter had accumulated and was in a state of rottenness or fermentation; and in this state he suggested that being carried inland by strong westerly winds, it might give rise to sickness. It is remarkable, however, that both the influenza and cholera progressed against the prevailing westerly winds.
[10] Men in a state of nature seem to resist malaria. Thus the natives of Newfoundland and of Canada generally, and indeed of all America, withstood readily the malaria of their native land, but perished when brought within the influence of European domesticity. We must allow, however, for the power of race. On the other hand, it seems almost certain that the old Roman armies withstood the influence of climate much more effectually than modern armies do. They lived generally in camps, which they themselves fortified. Of their sanitary regulations we know nothing, but of their camps we know that no English or French soldiers could possibly stand their ground for any length of time similarly encamped. A legion (about 12,000 men) encamped on a space of 700 yards square; what became of the refuse of the camp, and how was it disposed of? No Crimean disasters ever happened to Cæsar; he could not afford to lose his veteran Legions as we lost the Guards.