Dr. Mac Culloch on Malaria on Ship-board, 41 



extended mistake, I ought to caution any reader of this paper 

 from supposing that the writer of it is one of those who doubt 

 or deny the existence of a typhus, or a truly contagious fever. 

 It is difficult, indeed, to conceive how such a doctrine could 

 have been promulgated by any one acquainted with practical 

 medicine, or with the history of medicine : yet temper produces 

 strange phenomena in human society ; while the not uncommon 

 tendency of mankind (o fly off" suddenly into opposite extremes, 

 and not a little the love of paradox, added perhaps occasion- 

 ally to a little desire for notoriety through whatever means, 

 may perhaps serve to explain this recent aberration of opinions. 



It ought almost to be unnecessary to say how important it is 

 to distinguish between these two kinds of fever ; the contagious 

 and the non-contagious, typhus and marsh fever. And since 

 a clear idea of this subject, as far as that can be conveyed in 

 a paper of this popular character, is essentially fundamental to 

 the special object of this brief essay, I must be permitted to 

 enlarge a little on these general views ; confining myself also 

 as much as possible to that which, whether as matter of 

 doctrine, or matter of practice and utility, can be rendered ap- 

 prehensible to general readers. 



Such readers ought, therefore, to understand that there are 

 two fevers, of characters essentially distinct, if often very much 

 resembling each other in their symptoms, or general appear- 

 ances, progress, and effects ; and that there are but two, — as I 

 hope can be proved to the satisfaction of medical readers : all 

 the eruptive fevers, together with all the symptomatic ones, or 

 those which attend local diseases, being of course excluded : 

 — two simple fevers ; and one of these being the produce of 

 vegetable decomposition or malaria, including consequently all 

 marsh fevers, while the other, originating it is not always ex- 

 actly apparent how, can be communicated from one person to 

 another, which the former cannot. And this last is typhus ; 

 including many varieties, from a very slender disease to the 

 most mortal jail-fever or putrid fever: while, under the former, 

 are ranked every variety of ague or intermittent, together with 

 remittent fevers, which are often as persistent or continuous as 

 typhus or contagious fever, and often also assume the same 

 character of virulence or putrefaction, with a course as short 



