AND IN EPIDEMICS. 53 



the danger of exposure to the land-air at night, "every 

 man who slept ashore died, and the rest of the ship's com- 

 pany remained remarkably healthy." 



On the authority of Surgeon Allen, we learn, that at 

 Zanzibar, all who slept on board ship, escaped; every 

 victim seen or heard of, had passed at least one night on 

 shore. The captain and forty men from a French cor- 

 vette, who passed a night on land, were attacked by the 

 coast fever, and not one survived. 



Doctor Evans, writing from the unhealthy island of St. 

 Lucia, observes, that during the day, "the sportsman wades 

 through the stagnant waters and mangrove bushes, which 

 cover the surface of West India fens, with comparative im- 

 punity; but long before the sun has disappeared, he places 

 himself beyond the reach of their poisonous effluvia." 



Mr. Webb, Inspector of Hospitals, stated before a com- 

 mittee of the British House of Commons, that the men 

 who remained on board the ships in the noxious cli- 

 mate of Walcheren, were extremely healthy, although they 

 went ashore to lathe and exercise daily, but never remained 

 on land at night. Yet it was in that very place that the 

 English army, encamped or lodged on shore, was almost 

 annihilated by malignant intermittents. 



Robert Armstrong says, that of the crew of the ship of 

 war Monarch, employed to collect at Xanthus, specimens 

 of ancient art, the large body of men employed on shore 

 were, without exception, attacked with remittent fever, and 

 twenty-four of them died; whilst those who remained on 

 board of the ship were, to a man, exempted from fever. 



The inhabitants of our southern country are fully aware 

 of the important truth I have just illustrated, for they 

 avoid as a deadly poison, the night air of malarious re- 

 gions, but visit them and travel through them fearlessly, 



5* 



