31 2 On Malaria. 



is to be suspected that the object of the great cloacae of ancient 

 Rome was the same, though their history has not reached us ; 

 and it would be easy to confirm the same opinion, by the his- 

 tory of the diseases of towns without end, and by that of their 

 reforms on this point. Our own capital offers a striking ex- 

 ample of the improvement of its health from this cause ; while 

 the history of Fleet-ditch is familiar. It had indeed been 

 thought, and is still, that the fevers thus produced were typhus, 

 or contagious fever : but while it is obvious that remittent or 

 marsh-fever will explain the effects equally, so must it be re- 

 membered that these fevers occurred in summer ; that they 

 were peculiar to those particular vicinities ; and that, from the 

 reports of Sydenham and Morton, the fevers of London were 

 of this very character. And the whole analogy of fevers pro- 

 duced by such repositories of putrefying vegetable matter, not 

 altered as to its effects because mixed with animal matter, 

 seems to prove, as clearly as anything can be proved, that these 

 town-fevers, from this cause, are truly fevers from malaria, and 

 not from contagion ; while the deception which considered 

 them such, from occurring in the same houses or streets espe- 

 cially, is easily explained. It is just the same now as to rural 

 situations ; and the errors are the same. The whole inmates 

 of a house are affected with a fever, not because it is conta- 

 gious, but because they have all been exposed to the same 

 cause : while, unluckily, the occurrence of petechiae and so 

 forth, in bad cases, assists in perpetuating the error ; as if 

 this was not a common symptom in the marsh fevers of Italy, 

 Holland, and France. 



If I cannot prove, in this country, that the dunghills and 

 pools so often found in farmyards and before the doors of 

 cottages, are productive of malaria, I can at least quote the 

 very decided and numerous testimonies of French physicians to 

 this purpose : nor, indeed, would it often be easy to account 

 for the fevers occurring in this country, and among the lower 

 orders, without having recourse to this cause ; while the whole 

 analogy of the subject leaves no reason to doubt that it ought 

 to be one. 



And let me make one or two remarks here which apply to 

 all the cases of mud and putrefaction of whatever nature, I have 



