do not express _qualities_, but merely dimension or duration; from a
singular misconception of the proper sense of the word _quality_. We
find, in Letter IV, the rule given by most grammarians, though not by
all, that the article A becomes AN, when it is followed by any word
beginning with a vowel; but it is surely more natural to follow the
sound than the spelling, and, as we should never think of saying an
_youthful_ bride, it seems equally incorrect to say an _useful_ piece
of furniture; for the initial sound is precisely the same. In the
same manner A _unit_ and A _European_, seems to sound more agreeable
than AN; and the best speakers appear to adopt this custom.
Letter VIII gives us a rule for doubling the last letter of a verb in
the participle if an accent is on the last syllable: but it should
be observed that the L is doubled, whether accented or not, as in
_caballing_, _travelled_, _levelled_, _cavilled_, _controlled_. The
same letter contains a “List of verbs, which, by some persons, are
erroneously deemed irregular,” and which have been so deemed from the
time of our German and Saxon ancestors, though Mr. Cobbett thinks
it would be more philosophical to conjugate them regularly. Thus
we may see at once that _freeze_ may as well give us _frozen_, as
_frieren_ gives the Germans _gefroren_; that _hang_ may make _hung_
or _hanged_, according [p097] to its sense, as in German we have
_hienge_ from _hangen_, and _hängte_ from _hängen_, to execute. For
_sling_ and _slung_, we have authority in _schlingen_, _geschlungen_,
for _spring_ and _sprung_ in _springen_ and _gesprungen_; for
_swollen_, _swam_ or _swum_, and _swung_, in _geschwollen_,
_geschwommen_, and _geschwungen_. And it is quite clear from these
examples that “the bad practice of abbreviating, or shortening,” has
nothing to do with the matter.
In Letter XIV we have a very distinct examination of a rule in
punctuation which has been commonly adopted by good printers, without
so distinct a description of its foundation. “Commas are made use of
when phrases, that is to say ‘portions’ of words, are ‘throw_ed_’
into a sentence, and which are not absolutely necessary to assist in
its grammatical construction.” In a word, two commas are very nearly
equivalent to the old fashioned parenthesis. Again, “the apostrophe
ought to be called the mark not of elision, but of _laziness_ and
_vulgarity_;” a remark made in truly classical taste, which might
have been extended with perfect propriety to the subject of the
next paragraph, the _Hyphen_, the insertion of which is, to make it
uncertain whether the words united by it are one word or two. He
goes on admirably in the next page. “_Notes_, like parentheses, are
_interrupters_, and much more troublesome interrupters, because they
generally tell a much longer story. The employing of them arises,
in almost all cases, from confusion in the mind of the writer. He
finds the matter _too much for him_. He has not the talent to work
it all up into one lucid whole; and, therefore, he puts part of it
into _Notes_” . . . . . “Instead of the word _and_, you often see
people put _&_. For what reason I should like to know. But to this
_&_ is sometimes added a _c_; thus, _&c._ _And_ is, in Latin, _et_,
and _c_ is the first letter of the Latin word _caetera_, which means
the like, or _so on_. This abbreviation of a foreign word is a most
convenient thing for such writers as have too much indolence or
too little sense to say fully and clearly what they ought to say.
If you _mean_ to say _and the like_, or, _and so on_, why not say
it? . . . The abbreviation is very frequently made use of _without
the writer having_ any idea of its import.” But it is surely a
mischievous maxim, never to “think of _mending_ what you write. Let
it _go_. No [p098] patching; no _after painting_.” On the other
hand he is right in protesting “against the use of what, by some,
is called the _dash_. Who is to know what is intended by the use of
these _dashes_? . . . . It is a cover for ignorance as to the use of
points; and it can answer no other purpose.”
In Letter XV, there is a singular conceit with regard to the keeping
up a distinction between _a_ and _an_, where it is insisted that we
must not say “_a_ dog, cat, owl, and sparrow,” because owl requires
_an_; “and that it should be, a dog, a cat, an owl, and a sparrow;”
which is certainly better, and would be so, even if there were no owl
in the question.
Letter XVII. The criticism on Milton’s “than _whom_ none higher sat,”
is perfectly correct. _Than_ is never a preposition, and is simply a
variation from the older _then_, both in English and in German. _John
is better than James_ means simply John is good first, then James:
_er_ is _eher_ or _e’er_. _Who_ would sound awkwardly, but would be
more grammatical.
Letter XIX gives a definition of the ellipsis, which would be a
lesson to Apollonius himself: the compasses, it seems, “do not take
their sweep all round, but leave out parts of the area or surface.”
The objection to Blackstone’s language is very questionable. “The
very _scheme and model_ WAS settled,” may, perhaps, be defended,
because scheme and model are considered as one thing, the words being
intended to illustrate each other, but not to point out different
attributes of the administration of justice; and both words may
be admitted, as a collective term, to govern a singular rather
than a plural verb. It seems also to be an error to make _with_ a
conjunction rather than a preposition, and to say “The bag, with the
guineas and dollars in it _were_ stolen,” or “zeal, with discretion,
_do_ much.” “I expected to have seen,” is justly noticed as a common
error for “I expected to see.” The meaning of an _active_ verb is
erroneously confounded with that of a _transitive_ verb, in the
remarks on the word _elope_, which means to go off, or to run off,
and we should naturally say _was_ gone off, but _had_ run off.
The nature of the subjunctive mood is dismissed in the same Letter
without better success than has been obtained by former grammarians.
An essay was published about thirty years ago in a periodical work,
which brings the subject into a small compass; [p099] suggesting that
the subjunctive mood ought always to be considered as a _conditional
future_. The examples given are, “If the Elbe _is now_ open, we shall
soon have the mails, and _then_, if there _be_ any news from the
army, I will send it you immediately.” “If Catiline _was_ generous,
it was in order to serve his ambition.” The subjunctive past, if I
_were_, becomes present, by being the future of the past; going back
to the time when the present was future, and therefore contingent;
and this conditional sense involves no difficulty, except when a
mistaken adherence to the fancied rules of grammar forces it in where
it has no business: thus the rules of some grammarians would lead
us to say, if Catiline _were_ ambitious; which is totally contrary
to the true sense of the subjunctive. Mr. Cobbett seems to have
some such distinctions in view when he says that “_if_ has nothing
at all to do with the government of the verb. It is the sense which
governs.” By this he means that _if_ does not require a subjunctive
unless is relates to a _future contingency_. He is right in saying
“Though her chastity _is_ becoming, it gives her no claim to praise”:
but most decidedly wrong in adding “she would be criminal if she
_was_ not chaste”; for _was_ is here used as relating to the present
circumstances, which are the future of the past, and therefore
require the subjunctive _were_ to denote the condition intended. He
has, however, done signal justice to the cause of this injured verb,
by introducing it for _was_, in his sixth lesson, where he says it
should have been “Your Lordship _were_ apprized of every important
circumstance.”
Such errors as this, however, are easily corrected, and many of
the acute remarks which have been here copied are well worthy the
attention of practical grammarians; at the same time enough has been
said, without any disparagement of Cobbett’s talents, to show that
a man cannot be well qualified to teach that which he has not had
the means of properly learning. For although the English language
appears at first sight to be extremely simple and philosophical
in its structure, it has, in fact, been derived from a variety of
heterogeneous sources; it has undergone a variety of vicissitudes,
and has served for the expression of a multiplicity of discussions
on the most refined subjects in literature and history and science,
for [p100] the feelings of oratory, and the passions of poetry, and
it has been worn away by degrees, as the crystal in the stream is
worn to a pebble, till it has returned to a simplicity which wears
the aspect of the immediate offspring of the Chinese or Egyptian or
Mexican Hieroglyphics. But with all this, it has still some spots,
some idioms, which invariable custom obliges us to retain; and
which can only be distinguished from corruptions and vulgarisms by
tracing their history through the different stages of its progress,
including, of necessity, the corresponding idioms in the parent
languages out of which it has arisen.
Believe me always, my dear Sir, Your’s very sincerely, * * * *
_Malaria: an Essay on the Production and Propagation of this Poison,
and of the Nature and Localities of the Places by which it is
produced, with an Enumeration of the Diseases caused by it, and of
the Means of diminishing and preventing them, both at Home and in
the Naval and Military Service_. By J. Mac Culloch, M.D., F.R.S.,
&c. &c. Longman and Co. 1827.
Though we have given a place in our Journal to two articles on
Malaria from Dr. Mac Culloch, we have thought it expedient to take
some notice of his book under the form of a review; particularly
as some matters have come under our cognizance, which may add some
illustrations to this subject where the author appears to have been
in a state of deficient information, or to have shunned the question
for reasons which appear to us somewhat over refined.
We allude principally here to the localities and the facts, as they
are now before us; circumstances and events which seem to us of the
greatest importance, as enforcing the value of the details which he
has collected, and as holding out warnings to the people respecting
the preservation of their healths, in addition to those which the
work before us has given in describing the soils or characters of
ground in England from which this destructive poison is generated.
And before we proceed to the analysis of his book, we shall state
what those are, or at least a few of them, while wondering that he
should have overlooked them, or regretting that any fancies should
have prevented him from stating what would have been of so much
utility. [p101]
It is notorious that, in the last autumn, the remittent fevers in
various parts of the country amounted to a species of pestilence,
such as has scarcely been known in England from this cause, or we
might almost indeed say, from any other disease since the days of
Sydenham. Wherever ague had ever existed, or even been supposed
possible, in those places was this fever found: so that in all the
well-known tracts in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Essex,
Sussex, Hampshire, and so forth, there was scarcely a house without
one or more inhabitants under fever, while the event, as might be
suspected, was a considerable mortality. In the parish of Marston,
in Lincolnshire, for example, it amounted to 25 in 300 inhabitants;
in some other places, it reached one in sixteen, one in thirteen,
one in nine. And so extensive was its range, that even Hastings did
not escape; while it should be almost superfluous to say that every
other town on the sea-coast was so much infested by it, that they
who resorted to them for bathing, as usual, found themselves most
awkwardly situated, and also suffered in considerable numbers.
To come nearer home, and to what must interest us of the metropolis
more, the same fevers were extremely abundant in various parts of
the outskirts of London, as also in the villages or towns which are
connected with it, within a range of from six to ten miles. Not
to enumerate all these, this was the case throughout the range of
streets or houses which extends from Buckingham Gate to Chelsea; in
which long line, it is said, that almost every house had a patient
or more under this fever; though, as the author has truly observed,
these were mistaken for typhus, or at least thus misnamed. Thus it
was also about Vauxhall and Lambeth; and to a great extent among
all that scattered mixture of town and country which follows from
Whitechapel, from Bishopsgate, and so forth, and very particularly
along Ratcliffe Highway, and so on, to an indefinite range along
the river, not only on this side but on the opposite one, so as
to include Rotherhithe, and then proceeding onward to Deptford,
Greenwich, Woolwich, Plumstead, so as to carry us beyond the boundary
which we proposed to notice.
And in addition to the towns or villages which we have just named,
we may enumerate Lewisham, in which we knew one house in which there
were nine patients under this fever, which proved mortal to one.
Dulwich, especially subject to this disorder, Fulham, Ealing, and the
several other villages along the Thames, as far as Chertsey; and even
Richmond, [p102] where, as at Lewisham, there was one house known to
us, inasmuch as being intimate friends, where ten individuals at one
time were suffering under this disease.
We must not prolong this enumeration, since we might easily occupy
a dozen of our pages with similar details, ranging, in fact, all
over England; but we must still observe, that whatever was the
pestilence last year, it promises to be much greater in the present
one. This is easily judged from the manner in which the season has
set in; but still more decidedly from the extraordinary prevalence
of ague in the spring; since that which is intermittent fever then,
will be remittent in the autumn, or rather, as the author has
justly remarked, there will scarcely be a definite season of vernal
intermittent, but the remittent will commence immediately, increasing
in extent and severity as the summer advances, and promising to
become, in the autumn, the greatest season of disease that England
has known for this century.
As an example of this, it must suffice to enumerate two or three
facts, while these are as satisfactory for our purpose as a thousand
would be. The most general of these is, that ague is at this moment
extremely abundant where it was formerly so little known as not to
be noticed, and that where single cases used to occur, there are now
hundreds. Thus has it prevailed at Fulham and Ealing, and in the
outskirts of London, and even in the town itself; and thus does it so
prevail at Greenwich, Deptford, and in the associated vicinity, that
a medical friend informs us, that it comprises more than two-thirds
of his entire practice, which is very extensive; whereas a few years
ago he had rarely a patient in a year. Thus also in the Military
Hospital at Woolwich, there were in the spring three hundred patients
with this disease; while in former times, we are assured, that an
ague was scarcely known once in five or six years.
These are a few of the facts within our knowledge, but not one in
a thousand, which evince the necessity of the publication before
us; a book which seems to have been singularly well-timed, in as
far as its purpose is, by a dissection of the sources of malaria,
to diminish the ravages of both these kinds of fevers. And in this
view we consider it a work of very considerable utility, inasmuch as
it points out all the needful circumstances, as to prevention, in
great detail; while these seemed particularly called for in England,
from the entire and not less singular neglect which this subject has
experienced, not only from the people at large, but from the medical
profession. Beyond this, all that we need say of [p103] the character
of the work is, that it contains the only regular and complete
attempt at the natural history of Malaria that has been executed;
since the several foreign writings on this subject are partial, or
imperfect, or local in their investigations; and having said thus
much, we shall proceed to give a brief analysis of its form and
matter. And this analysis may be truly brief, without inconvenience;
since the two Essays from the pen of the author, to which we have
given a place in our Journal, will supersede the necessity of making
that useful and practical abstract which we should otherwise have
felt ourselves bound to give.
To pass over an introductory chapter of the usual necessity, the
author commences by pointing out the several disorders, in a general
way, which are produced by malaria, for the purpose of proving the
sources of this poison; and as we are of those who take the facts as
already proved, we need not notice it further.
The third chapter details the characters of those soils or situations
which are most commonly or generally admitted to produce this poison:
and though it contains some facts not very universally known, we
shall also pass it over as of less moment than that which follows.
This is the fourth chapter, containing the details of the
circumstances producing malaria, which have been either denied or
overlooked; and it is one of the most important practical chapters in
the book, inasmuch as it is to the popular ignorance of these that
we must attribute a large proportion of the cases of fever occurring
in common life. These, therefore, we shall mark briefly; and even
the briefest notice will be of use in the way of precaution, while
we must refer to the book itself for those proofs of the truth of
the several views, which we could not take room to give. Generally,
however, we may state this leading argument of the author, because it
is brief, and, to us, appears satisfactory. It is this: that as the
quantity of the poison which any person can inspire is necessarily
small, and as this small quantity can be produced by a small marshy
spot as well as a large one, it is the same as to the production
of disease, whether the marsh is a foot square or a mile, provided
the exposure be complete: while also, any piece of ground where
vegetables decompose under the action of water, is virtually a marsh,
or must produce malaria.
This enumeration, therefore, under that view, comprises, in addition
to marshes, whether fresh or salt, all the cases where water is
present in such a manner as to act upon vegetables; and the chief are
the following. [p104]
It is shown, and by facts, that the rushy swamps of high moorlands,
however small the extent, do produce this disease; and we must not
here forget to name what, however, belongs to the preceding chapter,
woods and coppices, little suspected in England, yet shown to be
the cause of fevers in Wales, and also in Sussex; very probably,
every where else. It is also shown that meadows and moist pastures,
whether in flat lands or on elevations, generate fevers; and very
particularly, should they have been affected by inundation or unusual
moisture, and if that should be followed by heat. And while it is
also specifically shown how, in all cases, it is the produce of
the drains or ditches required in meadow lands, it is distinctly
proved that, even without these, malaria is produced, or that it is
generated by the meadow or moist pasture itself.
It is also shown that this poison is produced by rivers, by all
flat rivers at least, or those of which the progress is slow and
through meadow lands; while this is pointed out as one of the causes,
especially, which is not suspected or not believed in England. And
here we can add a fact to our author’s statement, which is decisive:
this is the case of the barracks at Morne Bruce, in Dominica,
situated on a steep and rocky hill, perfectly dry, and free from
all other causes of suspicion, while eternally subject to the most
severe fevers. And the cause is, a mountain stream, about 300 yards
below this building, in the valley, always covered by a mist in the
evenings, and ascertained, by direct experience, to be the very cause
of the diseases in question.
Our author also notices canals, mill-ponds, ornamental waters, and
all other pools and ponds, even to so small a dimension as those
formed in gravel-pits; pointing out those, in particular, as common
causes of fever about London, and apparently much inclined to pass
a very severe judgment on the canal in St. James’s Park, and also
on the pond in St. James’s Square, while apparently restrained by
his prudential reasons, which appear to us sufficiently misplaced,
or, as we should fairly call them, somewhat absurd. But as we must
not affront a writer whose papers we have admitted, we shall say no
more on this matter. In noticing drains, he also speaks of moats and
modern fortifications; attempting to show that the fevers so common
in the sieges of ancient castles were produced by their moats, and
noticing the familiar fact of the frequency of fevers in fortified
towns. Lakes also are pointed out as situations generating this
poison: and it is here especially noticed that if, in those and other
cases, malaria is produced by the vegetable growth and decomposition,
[p105] so is it the consequence of the exposure of the mud of such
receptacles of water; a cause which is again treated of at greater
length in the subsequent chapter.
This chapter relates to what the author calls obscure and disputed
cases. We shall pass over these, which, as not implying precautionary
measures, are of the least interest, and commence by noticing the
case of vegetable putrefaction. It is attempted to show, that the
vegetable need not be living to produce malaria, but that, even if
utterly decomposed, its elements, acting on water, can generate this
poison. Among the cases under this head, are flax and hemp ponds,
common sewers and drains, dunghills, and tide harbours; and the
evidences under each are sufficient to make good the assertion. But
the most important of all, in our view at least, is bilge-water:
since our author has pretty clearly shown that all the fevers of
ships (excepting, of course, a few casual instances of contagion)
arise from this cause, and that if ships were kept clean, fever or
sickness would be nearly unknown at sea. This we do indeed conceive
one of the most important points in the work before us; and if the
author has referred to Sir Henry Baynton, as a stranger, we can quote
him, as a friend, that warrants for all that is here asserted, and
for far more; since his collection of facts on this subject is most
important, and we think him almost culpable in not having long ago
given them to the public. If the Leviathan was always the healthiest
ship in the navy; if she even left the West Indies, after a long
anchorage and service, with a crew of 500 men, and not one sick, it
is a case in the navy which never occurred before, nor since, and
which arose entirely from the knowledge of this able and careful
officer respecting the subject that we are discussing.
A sixth chapter explains, under the head of revolutions in the
production of malaria, a variety of circumstances not easily
admitting of abridgment. The chief of these are, the effects produced
by drainages, and reversely, those which arise from inundations or
other incidental causes affecting the state of the soil. But the most
important view which it contains is that which relates to the effect
of embankment in rivers, and to the geological changes produced by
the distribution of alluvia. As, however, we cannot well state this
in a small space, we shall pass to the chapter on the Propagation of
Malaria.