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ON THE 



CEYPTOGAMOUS ORIGIN 



MALARIOUS AND EPIDEMIC FEVERS. 



LECTURE I. 



THEORIES OF MALARIA. 



THE most ancient authors allude to the noxious influence 

 of the air of marshes and stagnant pools. Some of them 

 indulge in speculations respecting the immediate cause of 

 its morbific power ; and here and there, in their writings, 

 may be detected, more or less vaguely expressed by them, 

 the opinions, by the publication of which, Lancisi, less 

 than two centuries ago, acquired so much reputation. His 

 treatise de noxiis paludum effluviis, gave consistency and 

 authority to the impression of the miasmatists, and the 

 loose idea of a former age, became the accepted sentiment 

 of the eighteenth century. By degrees, the medical pro- 

 fession, almost everywhere, adopted the theory of the 

 causation of periodical fevers by marsh air, and even 

 ascribed the poison to a decomposition of the vegetable 

 remains of low and wet places. After that time (1695), 

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