f^ On Malaria, 



as may concern armies in the field, or in camps, it is plain 

 that they will depend on attention to the courses and seasons 

 of the winds; while it would be abundantly easy to accumulate, 

 from the histories of campaigns, the most fearful examples of 

 mortality produced by neglect of these and similar precautions, 

 and even down to almost the very date at which I am writing : 

 and there can be no hesitation in saying, that an intimate and 

 accurate knowledge of every thing which concerns the produc- 

 tion and propagation of malaria, forms a most important branch 

 in that information necessary to a soldier, and above all to the 

 quarter-m aster-general's department and the medical staff: 

 while, did I dare to record but a very small portion of the 

 mortality experienced, not only in our own armies, but in those 

 of Europe at large, during even the last war, from ignorance 

 or neglect on this subject, it would, I believe, be found that 

 it almost equalled the mortality produced by the actual colli- 

 sion of war itself. Walcheren will not soon be forgotten ; if 

 we have ceased to think of our mortal Havannah expedition ; 

 and if a French army at Naples was diminished by twenty 

 thousand men, out of twenty-four, in four days, from this 

 cause ; if OrlofF lost nearly his entire army in Paros ; if Hun- 

 gary has more than once destroyed ten times the number of 

 men by fever that it did by the sword, — these are but trifles in 

 the mass of reasons for saying, that no subject can well be 

 more important, and no knowledge much more necessary to 

 the commander of an army. 



Some other points relating to prevention may deserve a few 

 words of notice, before I pass from this subject; if here, also, I 

 must be brief Not to repeat the cautions founded on what 

 relates to the power of evening and morning, it has been 

 asserted that the use of a gauze veil will prevent the effect of 

 inalaria; and it is not improbable that the air accumulated 

 within that, may have the power of decomposing the poison : 

 it is an opinion, at least, which is universal among the people 

 in Malta, and very general in Spain and Portugal. It is also 

 found that fires and smoke are useful, and especially on military 

 service; the experiment having been tried on a very large 

 scale by Napoleon before Mantua, and on a smaller one in 

 Africa* with the most perfect success. With respect to per- 



