The inhabitants of countries infested with malaria, or vitiated air, when they have been spared the more acute forms of disease, or have recovered from them, are generally the victims of a miserable state of health, compared with which many conceive that death itself would be preferable.
The body loses its vigour and aptitude for exertion, becomes weak, disabled, sluggish, and impotent; the appetite fails: the limbs refuse to carry their burden aptly so called, and they become swollen and dropsical. The mind becomes lethargic and unfit for exertion, and the unhappy sufferer, who is insensible to whatever gratifies his more highly favoured fellow-men, becomes often weary of existence, a burden to himself, and an object of pity to others, who are accustomed to regard the activity, the cheerfulness, and graceful lineaments of health.
Thousands are so afflicted; and the number of those who thus have their existence embittered,—who are deprived of the manifold enjoyments which our condition can afford, and whose lives are prematurely terminated,—is even greater than that of those who die of the more violent and more speedily mortal distempers which are induced by vitiated air.
“A glance at the inhabitants of malarious countries or districts, must convince even the most superficial observer, that the range of disorders produced by the poison of malaria is very extensive. The jaundiced complexion, the tumid belly, the stunted growth, the stupid countenance, the shortened life, attest that habitual exposure to malaria, saps the energy of every bodily and mental function, and drags its victim to an early grave. A moment’s reflection must shew us, that ague and fever, two of the most prominent features of the malarious influence, are as a drop of water in the ocean, when compared with the other less obtrusive, but more dangerous, maladies that silently but effectually disorganize the vital structures of the human fabric, under the operation of this deleterious and invisible poison.”[[7]]
[7]. Johnson’s Diary of a Philosopher.
Such is the general state of health of the inhabitants of many parts of the world; but it is chiefly in some parts of “fair Italy,” whose celebrated blue skies invite, whose luxuriant vegetation delights, whose gay and extensive prospects ravish, and whose classic associations charm the ecstatic spectator,—where humanity acquires that degenerate character, and that hideous aspect, which it assumes as if on purpose to mark the contrast between the gay revelry of vegetation, and the revolting degeneracy of mortality.
The resident in Italy can scarcely escape entirely the action of malaria; if he survive or escape the more immediate and more violent effects, those just described are, in the course of time, almost sure to manifest themselves.
Many of our countrymen make their residence in Italy, invited by its sky, its sun, its fertility, its ancient monuments, and stirring associations, and they not unfrequently prolong their stay so much as to imbibe the seeds of general bad health, which, though it may not develope itself at the time, will manifest itself at some future day. The malaria of Italy, like that of some other countries, sometimes acts slowly, and does not produce its effects, until the sufferer is again resident in his native country. Assailed with general decay, he is at a loss to know its cause, happening, too, at a time, when he had expected that his general health would have been more than ever established by his residence in a warmer climate, and under a clearer sky. It is a remarkable feature in the general bad health thus produced, that it is marked with periodical alternations of activity and repose, or with aggravations and remissions.
CRETINISM.
Cretinism, by which is meant a degenerate state of body, and an imbecile state of mind, which occurs for the most part in the valleys of Switzerland, and among the hollows of the Alps and the Pyrenees, and that is in a great measure the product of vitiated air, emanating from the swampy valleys and basins, which contain animal and vegetable materials, powerfully acted upon by the direct and reflected rays of a burning sun.