4S On Malaria. 



Suffolk, and Lincolnshire, it is not thus hmited, since it is 

 known to happen further north, and even in Scotland, where 

 malaria is not indigenous to the soil. It is very true that if we 

 take any inland position in the places thus noted, the natural 

 solution is, that the malaria is generated in the very soil itself 

 of England, and merely propagated, perhaps even to very 

 moderate distances, through those winds. But the occurrence 

 of disease cannot be explained thus, when the place in ques- 

 tion is so situated that there is no land to the eastward, or 

 when the breeze is, most literally and rigidly, a sea breeze ; 

 while, when ague thus occurs on the east coast of Scotland, 

 where it is not produced by the soil, it must be imported by 

 the east wind. 



. These are the facts; while as malaria is not produced by the 

 6ea itself in any known circumstance, though a vegetating sea 

 beach may give rise to it, we must seek the cause in lands far 

 distant, and consider this as a case of propagation of the 

 poison from the shores of Holland ; and those shores are un- 

 questionably competent to that effect : so that the only question 

 that remains, the fact being admitted, is, whether, a priori, or 

 theoretically, such a view is probable, or whether it is con- 

 sistent with those physical principles that are concerned in the 

 propagation of malaria. 



I am aware that such a view will excite the incredulity of 

 those who have not attended to this subject ; though it appears 

 to me that it comprises nothing averse to our knowledge of the 

 philosophical circumstances concerned. In the first place, let 

 us remark that the east wind, and particularly the east winds 

 gf spring, are notorious for their moisture, and that a moist air 

 is the best conductor of malaria, as moisture in the air, under 

 the form of evening mists, or in other modes, appears even to 

 be its proper vehicle, or residence, if I may use such a term; 

 and though I have not as yet separated the case of a fog, I 

 may now remark, that the effect in question, or the production 

 of agues by fogs arriving from the sea, is e\en more notorious 

 than their generation by an ordinary clear wind. So notorious 

 and popular, indeed, is this fact, that the fog itself is deemed 

 the source of the disease, as the east wind under any form is, 

 in other circumstances ; while I hope it will even now appear, 



