From the mountains there pour many streams into the valleys or troughs beneath, and, as the water is seldom completely carried off, it there forms an excellent or very favourable nidus for the putrefaction of animal and vegetable remains.
It is said, by those who have attentively observed the miserable population in these regions, that they form the most humiliating picture of humanity. The body presents the most loathsome condition, and the mind is removed only a step from idiocy itself.
The unwholesome tendency of these terrestrial vapours is materially increased by the almost incredible filth in which the inhabitants keep their persons, clothes, houses, and streets, the effluvia of which alone are almost intolerable and most offensive.
The general degeneracy of the body is frequently accompanied with a large swelling at the front of the neck, which gets the name of “Goitre,” and which is known in England under the appellation of “Derbyshire Neck.”
Cretinism has prevailed in Switzerland for many centuries, and has been likewise noticed among the mountains of China.
Cretinism is thus ably described by Dr James Johnson: “The stature is seldom more than from four to five feet, often much less;—the head is deformed in shape, and too large in proportion to the body;—the skin is yellow, cadaverous, or of a mahogany colour, wrinkled, sometimes of an unearthly pallor, with unsightly eruptions;—the flesh is soft and flabby;—the tongue is large, and often hanging out of the mouth;—the eyes red, prominent, watery, and frequently squinting;—the countenance void of all expression, except that of idiotism or lasciviousness;—the nose flat;—the mouth large, gaping, slavering;—the lower jaw elongated;—the belly pendulous;—the limbs crooked, short, and so distorted as to present anything but a waddling progression;—the external senses often imperfect, and the Cretin deaf and dumb;—the tout en semble of this hideous abortion of nature presenting the traits of premature old age. The Cretins are voracious, and addicted to low propensities. To eat and sleep form their chief pleasures. Hence we see them, between meals, basking in nonchalance on the sunny sides of the houses, insensible to every stimulus that agitates their more intelligent fellow-creatures.”
Before closing this sketch of the effects of malaria in Italy, a table of the annual decrement of life is submitted, which will shew the fearful mortality of that country over that of England, the disproportion against the former country being owing, in a very great degree, to the contamination of the atmosphere, caused by the effluvia which arise from the soil.
In Rome, 1 out of every 25 persons dies annually, or a 25th part of the whole population.
In Naples, 1 out of every 28 persons dies annually, or a 28th part of the whole population.
In England, 1 out of every 60 persons dies annually, or a 60th part of the whole population.