68 Dr. Mac Culloch on Malaria on Ship-board. 



and who, in consequence, preserved the lives of his crew, which 

 he must otherwise have lost in the usual proportion. And his 

 recommendation is, that a ship, or more, of no value, should 

 be kept on the African coast, to be the receptacle of volunteer 

 negroes for this particular service ; a matter easily accom- 

 plished, and of which the consequences could not fail to be 

 most beneficial. As to ordinary precautions, in the case of 

 seamen, it should be an invariable rule to suffer no boat to 

 enter a river, or to be on shore at all, between sunset and sun- 

 rise ; and further, to prevent, as far as possible, any such boat 

 from being on the shore, or in a river at low water, — as that is 

 the period when, from the exposure of the mud, the malaria is 

 active, while its presence is betrayed by the very smell. 



Among other precautions, applicable to particular cases, I 

 stated in the Essay on Malaria, and from African authority, 

 that the lighting of fires in the service of cutting wood was 

 found to be an effectual preventive; and it will be easy for 

 any ofHcer to see in what exact cases it may be applied. It is 

 another general precaution, applicable to every case of this 

 nature, every service of seamen on shore in a hot climate, 

 never to suffer men to go on shore, nor even to be on the 

 deck in harbour, further than as the watches are concerned, 

 before breakfast, or without at least some allowance of 

 spirits; since, in every case, this precaution has been found 

 of great use, as the standing practice of Holland fully tes- 

 tifies. And, for the same reason, the smoking of to- 

 bacco, which, from obvious motives, is discouraged in ships, 

 ought not only to be permitted, but commanded ; since ample 

 experience has also shown its great utility. To suffer no men 

 to be unnecessarily on deck when near the shore, is a pre- 

 caution to be deduced from what has already been said ; and 

 this rule offers a particularly obvious reason for reducing the 

 night-watches, in particular, to the lowest admissible number. 

 With respect to some of these circumstances, and very remark- 

 ably as to the dangerous influence of the morning, as well as 

 the evening, the experience of India offers some very remark- 

 able illustrations ; as the great losses of men have always 

 occurred in those regiments where a martinet feeling in the 

 commanding officer (as the phrase is) has led to the regulair 



