Transcriber’s notes:
The text of this e-book has been preserved in its original form
apart from correction of a few typographic errors (omposition →
composition, recal → recall, gives → give, bloodvessels → blood
vessels), and insertion of some missing quotation marks. Inconsistent
hyphenation and inconsistent spelling (Scheld/Scheldt/Sheldt)
has not been altered. Footnotes have been numbered and positioned below
the relevant paragraphs.
AN ENQUIRY
INTO THE
ORIGIN AND INTIMATE NATURE
OF
MALARIA.
By THOMAS WILSON,
CHEVALIER DE L’ORDRE DU LION NEERLANDAIS.
LONDON:
HENRY RENSHAW, 356, STRAND.
1858.
LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
TO
M. ROCHUSSEN,
MINISTER OF COLONIES AT THE HAGUE.
SIR,--
I have taken the liberty of dedicating this little work to you.
It treats of a subject on which I have made many experiments and
collected many observations in Belgium and in Holland. I have carefully
weighed the conflicting evidence of some distinguished observers, and
the conclusion arrived at is, that this conflict has arisen partly
from a want of due care in making the observations, partly from the
extreme difficulty accompanying all inquiries in which physiology and
pathology, health and disease, are necessarily involved.
In the course of my memoir I have endeavoured to do justice to
Holland, esteeming it to be the most remarkable country in the
world. I cannot find in the history of any other nation proofs so
clear of the beneficial effects of indomitable industry, directed by
intelligence, over the welfare and destinies of a people; nowhere do
I find evidence so convincing of the great results flowing from the
application of practical science to the wants of a people; nowhere do
I find to the same extent a sound commercial and political economy,
first developed and acted on in Holland, lead so directly to the
civilization and welfare of a nation. Those great principles which
other nations and other races discussed theoretically and elaborated
into systems, the nation of which you are a distinguished citizen,
discovered, adopted, applied, and enforced. To Holland, as a nation,
belongs eminently the character of practical. Whilst other nations left
uncultivated as they found them, or rendered unproductive, the most
fertile territories, seemingly unable to turn them to account, the
country and people to which you belong compelled the ocean to retire
from a barren, unprofitable, and untillable soil, which they converted
into a garden; and if ever the great problem of rendering the whole
earth habitable for man be solved, I may venture to predict--with
all due respect for other nations and other races--that the solution
must come from Holland. As it would be presumptuous in me--a humble
individual--directly to address a nation, I have ventured to do so
indirectly through you. Permit me, therefore, to dedicate this little
work to you, as the expression of my personal regard and friendship,
and of my deep respect for the nation to which you belong.
I am, SIR,
Most respectfully yours,
THE AUTHOR.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
Epidemics--Their mysterious character--Distinction between endemics
and epidemics--Malaria, where chiefly met with--Is it of one kind
or several?--Author’s long residence in a _malaria_-producing
country pp. 1–3
CHAPTER I.
The question as to there being several kinds of malaria, further
examined--Theory of Macculloch, tracing to a malaria, chiefly
generated by man himself, all forms of disease, from the plague to
a common neuralgia--This theory now accepted, and to a certain
extent acted on by the British Government--Experiments of the
Board of Health--Results to be seen at Luton, Birmingham, and
London pp. 4, 5
CHAPTER II.
The history of epidemics adverse to the theory of Macculloch--Results
of confounding drains with sewers, and of converting drains into
drain-sewers--Influence of the external world (earth, air, and water)
over man, first examined by Hippocrates in his celebrated treatise,
“_De aere, aquis et locis_,”[1] but with other views--Influence of
modern chemistry over physiology--Men now expect from chemistry a
solution of some of the great problems of physiology and pathology
still unsolved pp. 6–14
[1] Περι αερον, ὑδατων καὶ τοπων. Cary’s edition. Paris. 1806.
CHAPTER III.
The great plague in the time of Justinian--View as to its African
origin, and strictly contagious nature, adopted by Gibbon--Admits,
however, the necessity for an insalubrious condition of the atmosphere,
in addition to the presence of the poison--Its reappearance at present
in Northern Africa (Bengazzi)--Modern theories as to its origin and
mode of propagation, refuted by the histories of plague, cholera, and
typhus--Murrains pp. 15–25
CHAPTER IV.
View of nature acted on by the Hollander and Brabanter--Their struggle
to overcome the difficulties of their position--Rise of the Dutch
Republic, and of the School of Mechanical and Practical Science of
Holland--Its influence over Europe and the world--Drainage of the Lake
of Haarlem--Practical instances of the truth of the principle, that
“when man interferes with nature, he must carry through the work to an
issue”--How to convert a peat-bog into a healthy meadow, a dreary waste
into a profitable, cheerful farm pp. 26–30
CHAPTER V.
Sources of malaria--Various medical hypotheses refuted by Colonel
Tulloch--Intermittents and remittents as they appear on the Western
Coast of Africa and in Canada pp. 31–43
CHAPTER VI.
Extent of life on the globe as proved by the microscope--Theory of
Cuvier as to the nutrition of plants and animals--Vast extent of
the microscopic living world--The “blooming of plants”--Results of
disturbing the muddy banks of rivers--Sources of the bad odours of
certain marshes and rivers--Remarkable influence of a change in
temperature over the products of fermentation--Parasite theory of
putrefaction, fermentation, and disease, refuted by Liebig, pp. 44–54
CHAPTER VII.
Decomposition and metamorphosis of animal beings--Influence they
exercise over the soil as a habitation for man--Disposal of the
excreta and remains of animals and vegetables--Danger of these when
accumulated--Immunity of savage tribes--Scurvy amongst the white
troops at the Cape of Good Hope, the healthiest climate in the
world--Metamorphoses of organic remains--Influence of oxygen, of
nitrogen, and ammonia--Source of the inorganic principles--Fluate of
lime in fossil bones--Danger to man of putrescent sea-water--Man’s
incessant struggle with nature--Fatality of the climate of Rio
pp. 55–65
CHAPTER VIII.
Earth, air, and water, in relation to man--How modified by
him--Results of that modification--Action and reaction--Antagonism
of man to nature--Effects of human labour on the soil--How man
protects his dwelling--Distinction between a drain and a sewer, a
distinction first practically denied in England--Chemical elements
of animal bodies--Nourishment of plants--Exhaustion of the soil in
Virginia--Value of farm-yard manure--Agriculture in China--Effects of
clearing the primæval forests of America--Causes of the hay-fever,
typhus and typhoid fevers--Effects of bad ventilation--Importance
of the infusoria in nature’s great scheme--Origin and action
of _humus_--Functions of the _humus_ and of the leaves--Means
adopted in Holland for the conversion of a bog or morass into a
polder--Antediluvian vegetation--Elements which require being restored
to the soil--Belgian agriculturists--Statistics of Quetelet pp. 66–88
CHAPTER IX.
On poisons, miasms, and contagions--Difficulties besetting the
questions as to their essential nature and origin--Poison of typhus,
of yellow fever, and of the remittent fevers of hot countries--Their
appearance at uncertain and distant periods in an aggravated
form--Statistics of the recurrence of remittents in the West
Indies--Light thrown by chemistry on the subject--Fermentation and
putrefaction--Peculiar poisons--Distinction between a miasm and a
contagion--Odour perceptible in sick chambers--Ozone, pp. 89–98
CHAPTER X.
On the servitude of rivers--Practical knowledge of the ancients--Early
Roman history a fable--The great social problems of _race_ and
_climate_ in some measure unknown to the Romans--First mooted in the
reign of Justinian--Present phases of human society--How affected by
these two problems--Influence of civilization over the earth
pp. 99–110
CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
Author’s theory of malaria--Has malaria a real existence?--Action of
ferments on the blood--A malarious air not dislodged by storms--Quality
of the air over ditches, &c.--Experiments by the Author on microscopic
mollusca--Influence of chemistry over physiology--Ammonia--Its
volatility and universal prevalence in the air--Its sources and action
on living bodies--Danger of drainage-works during summer--Spread
of plants through the air--Appearance of strange plants in a
country--Conclusion--Various phases of sanitary science--laws of
decomposition and composition--Results to man of a false position in
nature pp. 111–128
APPENDIX pp. 129–136
ERRATUM.
Page 98, line 2 (note), _should read_ “Hydrogen is the lightest known
substance; its specific gravity is to that of air 732 to 10,000.”
AN INQUIRY
INTO
THE ORIGIN AND INTIMATE NATURE
OF
MALARIA.
INTRODUCTION.
In addition to the wide-spread desolating epidemics which appear from
time to time, mysterious in their origin, progress, and cessation
or disappearance--such, for example, as the plague of Athens, the
plague of London in the time of Charles the Second of happy memory,
the Indian or Asiatic cholera of modern times, and the disease called
influenza, a frequent visitor to Western Europe during the last
half-century--there exist localities unceasingly under the influence
of a poison inimical to human life. This poison, since it may be so
called, is known to haunt the deltas of large rivers, and seems to be
always present there; but it is found also, if we may determine its
identity by the identity of its deleterious influence on men, in other
and very various localities: sometimes it shows itself--and this most
commonly--in marshy and fenny countries, where no large rivers exist,
at other times by the banks of fresh-water lakes; now it haunts the
forest, and now the open plain, where marsh and fen, swamp and decaying
vegetation, seem all but absent. As the inhabitants of such localities
are especially afflicted with the fevers called intermittent and
remittent, it is the most natural thing in the world to ascribe to the
locality itself the origin of these diseases. When, however, we attempt
to generalize and assign to the same cause in a more concentrated form
those terrible fevers which render tropical countries the graves of
Europeans, great difficulties arise, and numerous objections, which the
best of statisticians, not to mention the simply medical observer, have
failed to elucidate and remove. Thus physicians are not agreed as to
the identity of the poison under all circumstances, or in other words,
demonstrative evidence is still wanting to prove that the cause of
fever on the western coasts of Africa is identical with that which has
so often in the Antilles destroyed England’s chosen troops, decimated
her fleets, crippled her power, annihilated her army, as at Walcheren,
and broken up the health of many a sturdy yeoman by the banks of the
Scheldt, of the Thames and its tributaries.
To this poison the term malaria has been applied--a word borrowed
from the Italian. This malaria is presumed, whatever it may be, to be
the cause (though not exclusively), on evidence almost amounting to a
certainty, of the fevers marked by intermissions and remissions; it
may also be the cause of the more terrible febrile diseases called the
yellow fever, the black vomit, &c., of tropical countries. On this I do
not insist. As regards intermitting and remitting febrile affections,
we are all but certain that to such localities as I have just alluded
to, their origin may be traced, however they may originate elsewhere.
A long residence in Holland and Belgium (countries supposed by many to
be in an especial manner the hot-bed and active parent of malaria)
has enabled me to observe, I trust in an unprejudiced manner, some
facts which may have escaped the observation of others. Long resident
in that land, on which perished miserably the best equipped army (an
army composed of veterans) which ever, perhaps, quitted England for
foreign aggression; in that land on which perished the chosen garrisons
of the mighty Napoleon; on that spot where they dragged on a miserable
existence, or perished in the prime of life; the writer of this
essay enjoyed the best of health. Even admitting the full influence
of a vigorous constitution, and an innate vitality equal to the
neutralization of all malaria, a something must still be ascribed to
observation leading him to avoid the hurtful and insalubrious agencies
at work around him--agencies ever active, ever seeking to destroy. This
information the author has thought might be useful to others, and with
this view he submits it to the public.[2]
[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.
CHAPTER I.
MALARIA--ITS SUPPOSED ORIGIN.
Thus stood the question of malaria towards the close of the last
century, and for some years afterwards; its existence in certain
localities was never questioned--no one pretended to say that the fens
of Lincolnshire and of Cambridgeshire, the lowlands of Essex and Kent,
the muddy shores of the Scheldt and the Lower Rhine, the delta through
which the rapid Rhone finds its way to the Mediterranean, were healthy
countries. No one questioned the presence of malaria there, or its
power to inflict the plague of intermittent or remittent fever on most
strangers and on not a few natives who happened, unfortunately for
themselves, to be susceptible of its influence. The poison gave to the
Pontine Marshes a world-wide celebrity.
Again, of the more terrible febrile diseases of tropical climates, it
was suspected by many and boldly asserted by most medical men, that
to a malaria identical with that of Europe, but more concentrated by
high temperature, they owed their origin. Yet no one up to the period
I allude to--no physician, at least--had ascribed to neglected drains,
ill-conditioned sewers, imperfectly trapped cesspools, overflowing
dead-wells, &c., the origin of a malaria much more destructive than the
celebrated malaria of fenny or marshy countries, the malaria, if such
it really be, equal to the production of that plague, never absent, at
times most destructive--the dreadful typhus[3] of Western Europe.
[3] Typhus, now subdivided into two--namely, the true typhus and
typhoid fever.
At last one man, a shrewd, intelligent, and influential observer, a
man of genius, gave to the whole question a new phasis. Since his day
his hypothesis (for we shall presently find that as yet it deserves
no better name) has undergone a variety of modifications, as was to
be expected, in no way, however, affecting the practical deductions
originally drawn from it by its author. A brief history of this curious
episode in medicine, honoured by some with the pompous title of “a
revolution in sanitary science,” will fitly precede the inquiry on
which I am about to enter. Like the small white cloud warning the
navigator of the approaching tornado, this hypothesis, from its first
appearance as a humble essay in a monthly journal, has repeatedly
assumed, by force of circumstances, gigantic dimensions. Of it, as
of Rumour, it may be truly said, _Vires acquirit eundo_: it gathers
strength from motion. As is usual in England, a machinery has been
tacked to it of a character most heterogeneous, but withal so heavy
as already to threaten to surpass endurance--of the truth of which
remark no further evidence need be adduced than the modest demand of
six millions sterling to depurate or cleanse the Thames of those very
materials which, as a first experiment, and by no means an unprofitable
one, the Sanitary Board ordered and compelled the inhabitants of London
to throw into it. A brief history of this remarkable phasis of sanitary
science, as it is called, may prove acceptable to my readers.