Dr. Mac CuUoch on Malaria on Ship-board. 57 



in practice, now daily in England, this is the truth, is perfectly 

 apparent; and will be so to every one, who, hereafter at least, 

 shall take the trouble to study fevers with a somewhat differ- 

 ent care than they have hitherto received. That CuUen's own 

 notions of fever were not very clear or definite, may appear a 

 very bold doubt, particularly to those whose physic has been 

 derived from Edinburgh ; but it is not the only doubt, by very 

 many, which arises on studying, after twenty or thirty years of 

 far other studies, works which, in that boyhood of knowledge 

 which continues to be perpetuated through successive genera- 

 tions, it would have been almost a crime to have not wondered 

 at — to be wondered at now, in a very different manner. It is, 

 however, an excuse for him, and one which I am pleased that 

 I can make, that the comparative rarity of marsh fever in 

 Scotland had probably deprived him of the means of forming 

 very clear ideas on that subject, though in his day they were 

 far from uncommon in Edinburgh ; that he had formed his 

 notions on systematic writings, of a very vague nature for the 

 most part, and that seeing, habitually, contagious fever among 

 the poor of his city, he had made this disease his leading base 

 and ground of judgment. 



The last of these diseases, of simple fevers, requiring notice, 

 is the synocha, or inflammatory fever, in popular language. 

 Its general characters are known ; but what is the cause of a 

 fever in which there is no topical affection, which is not symp- 

 tomatic, and which does not arise from contagion? Cold, 

 heat, any thing else which physicians please ; but if still with- 

 out local affection, what is its character, and whence does it 

 arise ? I do not pretend to say : but it is proper that they 

 also who have defined and described such a fever, should refer it 

 to some general principle ; that the science of physic may not 

 for ever wander about among words. This much is believed by 

 those foreign physicians who have paid the most attention to 

 marsh fever ; namely, that an intermittent (if this term is here 

 admissible), or a fever produced by a marsh, may be limited to 

 a single fit. Of course, it may extend to two, or more ; and 

 thus the continued remittent (if I may coin a convenient 

 phrase) may occupy any period, from one, to two, three or 

 more days, onwards. Such a fever, in all its appearances, is 



