HOLLAND AND BELGIUM, THE LAND OF MARSHES AND OF FEVER, RECLAIMED AND
RENDERED SALUBRIOUS BY THE ENERGIES OF A FREE PEOPLE.
Necessity is the mother of invention. “Quis psittacum loqui docuit?
Venter: Magister artium.”[17] A constant struggle with Nature for
existence taught the Hollander and Brabanter a practical philosophy in
respect of the management of river mouths, tidal rivers, low levels,
freshwater and seawater floods, unmatched by any other nation. It
required the unceasing vigilance of the most experienced scientific
men to combat the adverse circumstances under which their country was
placed. An error of calculation laid waste a province; a breach in a
sea-wall let in upon the land not only the ocean, but famine, followed
by its sure accompaniment--fever, and a wide-spread mortality.
[17] Persius, Sat. Napoleon expressed the same idea when he said,
“The stomach governs Europe.”
In this land there was no room for experimental jobbery. To have
placed a linendraper at the head of the great hydraulic works on
which depended the salubrity and prosperity of Amsterdam or Rotterdam
would have roused the indignation of the country, and brought the
matter to a speedy issue. But it was not until the rise of the Dutch
Republic that there sprung up, as a natural result, a school of
philosophy--of natural philosophy, and of the sciences of observation
and application--hitherto unmatched, a parallel to which can only be
found in the era immediately preceding Alexander the Great. Freedom
of thought and action produced Muschenbroek and Leuwenhoek, De Ruyter
and Van Tromp: then flourished the Elzevir press, and Scaliger was
invited by the traders of Holland to pass his days in peace and plenty
with them, that his presence amongst them might throw a lustre on
their country. In this land flourished Camper and Boerhaave; Albinus
and Ruisch taught anatomy; Swammerdam discovered the globules of the
blood. In the meantime Tasman and Van Diemen explored the ocean,
immortalizing their names and their country by the grandeur of their
geographical discoveries. The views of the traders of this the most
celebrated of all republics, were universal, and included mankind: with
them originated sound political economy. The civilization, peculiarly
human, which overcomes all natural obstacles, reached its height in
this free land; security of life and property, equality before the
law, a contempt for all sinister hereditary influences, a respect
for the natural rights of man, and an appreciation of man’s innate
worth, uninfluenced by all extrinsic circumstances, characterized in
the Netherlands a period standing out in bold relief, and in striking
contrast with the history of all other European nations.[18] In this
forward movement Haarlem was conspicuous, proofs of which may be found
in the Transactions of the society established in that city. About
1771 there was offered a prize for an essay on the Waters of Holland,
as to the existence of any matters injurious to man or beast, and to
describe such, if existing. An unsuccessful candidate for the prize (M.
Vander Wild) advanced in his essay this remarkable principle--that the
sap of plants consists of living beings, in a liquid element.[19]
[18] It has been asserted on good authority, and not contradicted,
that the “Natural Theology” of the celebrated Paley is a mere
translation of a Dutch work.
[19] This principle, so fertile in ideas, will one day, no doubt, be
fully elaborated and studied to its results. These living beings may
prove to be the syphons of perfume and the messengers of colour.
As the nation was free to think and to express their thoughts, nothing
practical or useful escaped them: the question as to the influence
of the drainage of lakes on the health of the inhabitants was ably
discussed during the last century, more especially as to the result
of draining the lowlands of Biensten, de Wonner, &c. M. Ungo Waard
and others describe the sickness which took place on the drainage of
Bleewyksthe. In Haarlem, in 1779, the deaths exceeded those of the
previous year by 396; in Amsterdam, by 1727; in Groningen, by 752. The
previous summer had been hot and dry, offering another proof that the
vegetable humus thus exposed to the air, fermenting and rotting, was
the cause of the sickness and increased mortality. In this land there
was no room--no margin, to use a commercial phrase--for experiments on
the pockets and the health of its citizens; they were citizens, not
subjects--far-seeing men, who calculated everything _d’avance_. And now
the draining of the lake of Haarlem shows that the race has lost little
of its ancient spirit of enterprise and industry, of that applicative
invention to the wants of civilized man which gives to Holland and
to her colonies an aspect to which no other country bears any
resemblance. The poisoning of rivers and streams by any combination of
adventurers could never happen there, and the scenes we have witnessed
lately in England would be wholly unintelligible in Holland. It is
here that vast morasses, seemingly valueless, are being converted into
fertile meadows, by processes of which the natives of other countries
have not the slightest knowledge. In this land it is the law that,
before any one be permitted to convert a peat bog into a lake by the
abstraction of the peat, security is demanded of him as to his means
to drain the lake about to be formed, to embank the excavation, and to
convert it into a healthy fertile meadow; in England, on the contrary,
such cautious procedure is held in the most sovereign contempt, as
wholly unworthy that fine chivalrous character for pluck, daring, and
exciting enterprise and speculation which marks the free-born Briton.
“Break up the cesspools,” shout the interested, “the receptacles of the
filth of millions for a quarter of a century, and pour them at once
into the Thames.” “It will poison the river and the adjoining country
for a lengthened period,” suggests the prudent observer of passing
events. “Persevere,” exclaims the go-ahead party; “have we not proofs
in Macculloch that nearly all known diseases arise from the cesspools?
Leave the river to take care of itself.” What, in the mean time, is
the course of action of the Mayor and Corporation of the richest city
in the world? Fully occupied with the distribution of their revenues,
they abandon the river and interests of a vast metropolis to a host
of talented and needy adventurers, whose name is legion. The people
in Holland and Belgium think that the refuse and excreta of the
inhabitants of towns, villages, and single houses cannot be too soon
or too effectually buried under or incorporated with the soil; we, in
this country, act evidently from a belief that this refuse, the product
of civilization, cannot be too extensively spread abroad in the open
air, and accordingly a formidable and well-paid staff of more than
2000 persons is organized to carry out the delusion to its conclusion.
Luton, Birmingham, and London, afford hints as to what these delusions
may one day end in: that they will proceed in their course, I doubt
not, for, like Macbeth, they are so far involved, that it were safer
to proceed than to back out from their position. This could only have
happened in the land where the greatest of all railways does not pay
the proprietors one shilling of interest on the enormous capital
expended in its construction.
Located by the mouths of the Rhine and Scheld, the ancient Batavians
must early have commenced their struggle with nature. We have no
information from early history of how that struggle began; but one
thing is certain--it was of great antiquity, for in the Morini--the
last of men--Cæsar encountered no fever-stricken, wasted, dejected
people: they must already have discovered the existence of that hidden
enemy, malaria, and taken measures for at least a mitigation of the
evil.[20]
[20] For Note on this subject, see page 54.