S6 On Malaria^ 



own colonists arise from transferring to those situations their 

 ancient habits of full and free living. 



As I must not prolong this subject much further, I shall 

 now pass to a few remarks, but very brief ones, on the 

 geography of malaria as it relates to those parts of the conti- 

 nent of Europe most frequented by English travellers; not 

 daring to take room for actual and useful information on that 

 head, but wishing to point out merely the importance of such 

 geographical knowledge to those persons, on account of the 

 hazards which they so universally incur from that ignorance or 

 neglect, and of the great mass of suffering, and also of mor- 

 tality, which has been the lot of persons who had resorted to 

 those climates as travellers, or migrating residents, from various 

 motives, and not unfrequently Avith views to health. How 

 often health has been lost where it was sought, will be but too 

 apparent to any one who has chanced to possess an extensive 

 acquaintance of this nature. 



Of Italy I can but afford to say generally, that except at a 

 very few points where the Alps or Apennines reach the sea, 

 the whole of its shores are pestilential, and often to such a 

 degree as to lead to their entire desertion, more frequently to 

 their abandonment in summer. And to avoid wet lands, or 

 low lands, is not always a sufficient precaution ; since the most 

 pestilential parts of the maremma of Tuscany are dry, and 

 since the annual mortality of Sienna from fevers, even without 

 epidemics, is one in ten. In the north of Italy, the great plain 

 is similarly insalubrious ; though the more unhealthy district 

 does not commence until we arrive at Mantua, extending thence 

 to the sea. Of the Mediterranean islands, I can only afford 

 room to say, that the same rule holds good as to the sea coasts, 

 while the entire of Greece in the same circumstances is simi- 

 larly unhealthy, and subject to autumnal fevers in as great a 

 degree as the worst parts of Italy. The same is true of Spain 

 and Portugal, and the same rule also will be a guide ; namely, 

 that malaria is to be expected in all the flat grounds, even 

 when under cultivation, and at all the exits of rivers on the 

 sea, even though no marshes should be present: and if I were 

 desirous to name any tract of land in Spain peculiarly insalu- 



