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



the inflammatory fever, or the synocha of nosology ; and its 

 termination is very often that which I have already noticed as 

 the nervous fever — or it ends in a slender intermittent : in this 

 form, and this only, it has yet occurred to myself. If it had 

 another character and another cause, I should be pleased to see 

 that demonstrated, not asserted : though 1 must not terminate 

 this slight remark on this surely obscure disease, without re^ 

 minding my readers that I have never assumed malaria to be 

 the sole and indispensable cause of even decided intermittent 

 fever. It appears to be the far prevalent one, but it is not de^ 

 monstrated to be absolutely exclusive. 



I do not think that I could have dispensed with these pre- 

 liminary remarks on fevers in general, in examining the ques^ 

 tion especially in hand, that most important and serious ques- 

 tion, what are the prevailing, or ordinary fevers which occur in 

 ships ? Without these, all that I might have said would still 

 have left a ground of evasion and cavil, or at least a demand 

 on the general principles of the decision. That the remarks 

 have run into some detail will, I hope, be compensated by their 

 utility ; and I trust, that even independently of their bearings 

 on the main question, the mere excitement of such an inquiry, 

 mere doubts as to what is received, will effect some good ; 

 while if they should be true, they cannot fail to be widely be- 

 neficial. I may therefore proceed to this question, as it relates 

 to ships ; and in a political and commercial view, to the naval 

 service, and that of our vast commerce, and to the important 

 consequences which flow from the health or otherwise of their 

 crews. 



It surely cannot be necessary to say much as to the particu- 

 lar necessity of health in the crews of ships, in whatever ser- 

 vice ; on the very peculiar and perilous consequences of bad 

 health, or of sickness, disability, death, or prevailing mortality. 

 On shore, a sick man finds his substitute in any service ; and 

 a dead man is so soon replaced, that death never concerns any 

 one but the immediate dependents and sufferers. It is far 

 otherwise at sea. For the sick, as for the dead, there is no 

 substitute ; and when a definite labour has been allotted to a 

 definite number, every diminution of the number of labourers 

 is loss or inconvenience — often, ruin. Merchants, owners, and 



