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



English frigate picked up at sea a slave-vessel drifting under 

 the guidance of a crew, of which every individual was blind, 

 even to the slaves themselves ; these are extreme cases, per- 

 haps, yet to which parallels of some sort could be found, and 

 from fevers alone, throughout the whole history of our com- 

 merce and of our naval service. 



It cannot, therefore, fail to be a most important object to 

 check or destroy the production and propagation of fevers in 

 ships : since, if these are excluded, the crew of a ship is, now 

 that the scurvy has disappeared through proper regulations, 

 scarcely subject to any serious ill-health, or causes of mortality, 

 at least, except from accidents. A ship at sea, barring this 

 disease, is a far more healthy position than the shore, almost 

 anywhere ; and the events have proved it such in every case, 

 as is apparent from the history of voyages of discovery beyond 

 numbering. The reasons ought to be obvious : at any rate, I 

 ought not to prolong this paper by pointing them out. Could 

 that which I am desirous of enforcing be effected, as I think it 

 can, the consequences even to commerce would be most bene- 

 ficial ; in the naval service they would be even greater ; while 

 a very little consideration ought to show to every one, what I 

 should not here be justified in detaihng, at the hazard of occu- 

 pying another page. 



And the mode of proceeding for this end must be to deter- 

 mine, first, what is the exact nature of the fevers which occur 

 on board of ships ; secondly, what are the causes of them ; and 

 lastly, having ascertained these, how they are to be removed, 

 or their consequences prevented. A portion of this task is 

 nearly accomplished in the preceding remarks on fevers : the rest 

 will not occupy much space ; and if what I have said, and shall 

 add, should prove well founded, I cannot help thinking that a 

 most important set of facts have been ascertained in medical 

 and statistical science, and that the consequences will prove 

 most widely beneficial. 



No one can doubt that contagious fever occurs on board of 

 ships, while the causes through which it may be introduced, 

 and those which would make it spread, are obvious. I should 

 be among the last indeed to desire to subvert this opinion, 

 highly dangerous as I view that modern and yet limited dogma 



