6S On Malaridk 



which are the produce of malaria, and of the general condition 

 of the inhabitants in the countries subject to it. With respect 

 to this latter, the most remarkable general fact is the con- 

 tracted duration of life. In England, the average may, if not 

 very accurately, and indeed considerably under the mark, be 

 taken at 50 ; and when in Holland it is but 25, it follows that 

 the half of human hfe is at once cut off by this destructive 

 agent. In the parts of France to which I have alluded, it 

 becomes as low as 22 and 20, and Condorcet, indeed, has cal- 

 culated it as low as 18. With this, very few attain the age of 

 60 ; and in appearance and strength, this term is equivalent to 

 80 in ordinary climates ; while 40 forms the general limit of 

 extreme and rare old age. The period of age, indeed, com- 

 mences after 20 ; and it is remarked, in particular, that the 

 females become old in appearance immediately after 17, and 

 have, even at 20, the aspect of old women . In many places, 

 even the children are diseased from their birth ; while the life 

 which is dragged on by the whole population, is a life of per- 

 petual disease, and most frequently of inveterate and incurable 

 intermittents, or of a constant febrile state, with debility, affec- 

 tions of the stomach, dropsy, and far more than I need here 

 enumerate. 



While the countenances of the people in those countries are 

 Sallow or yellow, and often livid, they are frequently so ema- 

 ciated as to appear like walking spectres, though the abdomen 

 is generally enlarged, in consequence either of visceral affec- 

 tions or dropsy. With these, rickets, varices, hernia, and, in 

 females, chlorosis, together with scorbutic diseases, ulcers, and 

 feo forth, are common ; and it is even to be suspected that the 

 cretinage may depend on this cause, since goitre is also one 

 of the results of malaria, and since, in the Maremma of 

 Tuscany, idiotism is a noted consequence of this pestilential 

 influence. 



The general mental condition is no less remarkable ; since 

 it consists in an universal apathy, recklessness, indolence, and 

 melancholy, added to a fatalism which prevents them from 

 even desiring to better their condition, or to avoid such portion 

 of the evils around them as care and attention might diminish: 

 aad while it is asserted that even the moral character becomes 



