A happy chance has led Dr. Magliori to the discovery of an agent of this
sort which was traditionally in use by certain Italian families. It is an
exceedingly simple thing--merely a decoction of lemon. It is prepared by
cutting up one lemon, peel and all, into thin slices, which are then put
into three glassfuls of water and the whole boiled down to one glassful.
It is then strained through linen, squeezing the remains of the boiled
lemon, and set aside for some hours to cool. The whole amount of the
liquid is then taken fasting. It is well known that in Italy, Greece, and
North Africa, they often use lemon juice or a decoction of lemon seeds, as
a remedy in malarial fevers of moderate intensity; and in Guadaloupe they
use for the same purpose a decoction of the bark of the roots of the lemon
tree. All these popular practices tend to show that the lemon tree
produces a febrifuge substance, which resides in all parts of the plant,
but which would seem to be most abundant in the fruit. In fact, among the
popular remedies employed against malarial infection, that which I have
just described is the most efficacious, for it can be employed with good
effects in acute fevers. But it is especially advantageous in combating
the chronic infection, which is rebellious to the action of quinine, and
in removing or moderating its deplorable effects.
Hardly had I learned of this method of medication, when I hastened to
induce some proprietors in the Roman Campagna to try it with their farm
hands; and, after witnessing the good results there, I endeavored to
persuade practitioners to make a trial of the same treatment. I was
ridiculed a little at first, for they thought it rather singular that a
professor should be trying to popularize on old woman's remedy. In reply
to that I answered that practical medicine would not have existed, had it
not known how to treasure up from age to age the facts of popular
experience; and I ventured to remark that, had the Countess de Chinchon
waited until methodical researches had been made into the physiological
action of cinchona bark, before popularizing the remedy, the use of which
she had learned from the semi-barbarous Peruvians, in all probability
humanity would still, as regards malaria, be dependent upon the medication
practiced in the middle ages. Happily these arguments had the desired
effect upon certain distinguished practitioners, some of whom, especially
in Sicily and Tuscany, have already collected together a tolerably large
number of very encouraging observations. One of them, Dr. Mascagni, of
Avezzo, tried the remedy in his own person, and succeeded in promptly
curing an obstinate malarial fever which had resisted the action of
quinine.
Gentlemen, in dealing with malaria we ought always to hold popular
experience in high esteem, for we owe much to it. We owe to it the fact
that we have been liberated from the paludal idea, and furthermore, that
we have learned that it is often better, instead of trying to prevent the
importation, for the most part imaginary, of malaria from distant marshes,
to suppress its production in the soil under our feet or in that
immediately surrounding us. We owe to it the knowledge, which we now have,
that malaria rises up into the atmosphere only to a limited height, so
that by placing ourselves a little above this limit in order to eliminate
the possibility of the malaria being carried up to us by oblique
atmospheric currents, we are enabled to breathe an air which does not
contain this ferment, or which contains it only in insignificant amounts;
thus one may even sleep in the open air during the night in very unhealthy
districts without running any risks. The knowledge of this fact has led
some peoples of Greece, and the inhabitants of the Pontine Marshes, to
sleep in the open air on platforms raised on poles four or five meters
(twelve to fifteen feet) in height. Some people in the Roman Campagna have
built houses for themselves on top of the ancient tombs, the walls of
which are perpendicular; the American Indians fasten their hammocks as
high up as possible to the trees of the malarious forests; and very
recently, the engineers of the Panama Railroad had little wooden huts
built in the trees in order to procure safety against the terrible
outbreak of malaria which occurred during the construction of that iron
way. We owe, finally, to this popular experience the discovery of the
specific action of quinine, and the consequent preservation of thousands
and thousands of human lives. Why should we reject _a priori_ and without
investigation other useful data which it may yet present to our
consideration? If we wish to make progress in this question of rendering
malarious countries healthy, we must always hold before our eyes a double
object--to find a means of prophylaxis which may be accessible to
everybody; and, at the same time, to find a means equally within
everybody's reach, to overcome chronic malarial poisoning and its evil
consequences. Science is still too far behind to permit us to hope that we
shall soon succeed in discovering this second means by purely scientific
researches. We ought, therefore, to gather together with great care all
the facts which point to the possibility of a solution of this problem,
and if the measures to which these facts point seem to be incapable of
doing harm, we ought to try them boldly, and not be restrained by a false
idea of the dignity of science. The social importance of the problem is
too great to allow of its solution being retarded by the fear that
scientific men may be accused of having been outrun by the ignorant. True
science has none of these puerile susceptibilities; on the contrary, it
deems it an honor to be able to seize all the observations of fact,
whoever may have been their first recorder, to put them to the crucial
test of methodical experiment, and to convert them into a new stepping
stone on the march of human progress.
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