220 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 4 



It is also one of the few settled points, among 

 scientific investigators, that malaria is very 

 hghl, at least when warmed by the sun; and 

 hence the fact known to many in this country, 

 that those who live on the borders of marshes, and 

 of mill-ponds, sometimes escape all injury from 

 their exhalations, when others, who live on high 

 hills, and at much greater distances from the 

 sources, suffer greatly by the disease produced. 

 Facts of this kind are numerous, and of regular 

 annual occurrence, in Gloucester county. "The 

 whole of the wide and very level low-ffrounds fiir- 

 nish residences very healthy, compared (o the tide- 

 water region in genera! ; though intersected in 

 every direction by tide- waters, "and Ihoug.i there 

 still remains much swamp land unreclaimed, such 

 as the whole body of low-ground was when in a 

 state of nature. But the high, dry and hilly land, 

 which forms the ridge of the county, is less heal- 

 thy ; and the highly elevated and beautiful sites 

 of mansion-houses overlooking the low-grounds, 

 are universally sickly in autumn. 



If all the facts in regard to the nc'ion of malaria, 

 were as regular and uniform as this one, just sta- 

 ted, is in Gloucester, there would be flir less doubt 

 on (he subject. It is the uniform character of the 

 country, in its high-land, low-ground, and also 

 the wafer, and the long extent of each, which 

 causes these effecls to be so uniform there. Owing 

 to causes stated in the description of the low"^ 

 grounds of Gloucester, (page 178,) there is but 

 little malaria evolved there; and if that, as suppos- 

 ed, rises by its greater levity, the regular daily 

 sea-breeze must cause it to float towards the high- 

 lands ; and the long and regular line of ridge can- 

 not fail to receive it, and in not very diffijreiit pro- 

 portions. But in most other situations, even 

 though malaria should be produced in great quan- 

 tity and with direful effects, yet these effects are 

 so extremely irregular, in the places, the times, and 

 the intensity of their operation, that they cannot 

 be certainly traced to their true source ; and there- 

 fore, that source may remain scarcely suspected, 

 while it is dealing out death somewhere in almost 

 every season. Away from the vicinity of the sea, 

 nothing cari be more irregular than the winds; 

 yet, supposing a mill-pond to produce a regular 

 and large supply of malaria every autumn, 

 (though that supply is itself extremely irregular,) 

 it depends upon the direction, force, and continu- 

 ance of every change of wind, whether and where, 

 and to what extent, the malaria will produce dis- 

 ease. It is therefore not at all stranue, nor oppos- 

 ed, as is thought by some, to the regular annual 

 production ol" malaria or causes of sickness, by 

 each mill-pond, that the visitations of sickness, at 

 any one place, should be very irregular, and the 

 difference be often totally inexplicable from any 

 known causes, or variation of circumstances. 



Accordinff to the views presented, there must 

 be more or less malaria (or the gaseous products 

 which, under certain conditions^ form malaria,) 

 evolved in every country where there is much ve- 

 getable matter to ferment, and sufficient warmth 

 of climate to carry on fermentation. But, in the 

 small quantity which is unavoidably extricated in 

 every such temperate and fertile country, these 

 products seem to be harmless. Perhaps a small 

 quantity is absorbed as food by growing plants, 

 and this aids the production of the earth. If so, 

 this beneficial operation is made easy by another 



quality of malaria, which is well established as 

 true. This is, that though it is so expanded by 

 the sun as to rise above the lower air, still it re- 

 mains on the surface of the earth in the night, af- 

 ter being extricated, or perhaps descends again 

 from above, when condensed by the cold night- 

 air, and of course lies in contact, through the 

 night, with growing plants. Hence ii is, that 

 sleeping on the ground, or in the lowest apart- 

 ments, and being exposed to the night-air, in- 

 vites the attacks, and increases the virulence of 

 malaria; and hence also it is, that the keeping o( 

 fires at night, even in warm weather, has been 

 found highly useful to health, in places much sub- 

 ject to autumnal fevers. 



Though it may then be theoretically true that 

 every good soil, in every agreeable climate, is 

 throwing out malaria to a certain extent, it is only 

 large quantities that are hurtful; and in practice, 

 we have only, if possible, to avoid the f(:)rniation 

 of the hurtful excess of tlie products of fermenta- 

 tion. If", in lower Virginia, we can guard against 

 the existing and increasing excess of malaria, our 

 situation would be one of the healthiest in the 

 world. For while we are comparatively free 

 from the many and fatal disorders of (he lungs to 

 which the inhabitants of northern, and what are 

 usually and improperly called healthy countries, 

 are peculiarly subject, we have no source of dis- 

 ease peculiar to our location, save this one, which 

 I fully believe, it is within our power to guard 

 against. 



Putrefying animal matter, alone, however of- 

 fensive in scent, is supposed not to produce mala- 

 ria. It cannot be doubted but that decomposing 

 vegetable matter is its source, because there is no 

 production of it where there is no such material. 

 Still, vegetable matter, alone, or even when mixed 

 with some putrescent animal matter, does not seem 

 generally (o produce malaria in great quantity, or 

 with manifestly injurious effects on health. Thus, 

 the gradual fermentation and rotting of the litter in 

 cattle-yards, when left to stand through summer 

 and autumn — or when the same was heaped and so 

 left, (as was formerly the general practice in lower 

 Virginia on all farms where manure was an object 

 of care — ) never was known to be certainly and 

 highly injurious to the residents on the farm. 

 Doubtless, malaria, and to an injurious extent, 

 was always thus produced; but I have never 

 known a sensible difference in regard to health, 

 in years when either of the practices above-named 

 were pursued, and when the material was carried 

 out and applied to the fields in the spring, before 

 fi^rmenting. Yet, if judged by the test of some of 

 the causes and efiects as described and reasoned 

 from by writers on malaria, one well-filled yard of 

 litter, rotting through summer, ought to have pro- 

 duced enough malaria to kill half the inhabitants 

 of the fiirm; and effects, in general, which would 

 have been so disastrous, and so sure, as to leave 

 no doubt of the cause of the evils, and of the ab- 

 solute necessity of preventing the recurrence in 

 future. 



But the i)utrefaction of vegetable matter, mixed 

 with other things, as earth and water, and under pe- 

 culiar circumstances, (though neither the precise 

 admixture nor tlie circumstances are known,) pro- 

 duces disease to such extent, that there is no doubt- 

 ing or mistaking the connexion ofcauses and effects. 

 Such sure and abundant sources of malaria are the 



