14 FLORIDA I ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



lie found as " much ozone in the air of marshes as in other air." Clemens 

 says: " There is a large proportion of oxygen near the surface of lakes, 

 giving the reaction of ozone," more especially if there are certain aquatic 

 plants present; and he also remarks that at some feet above the surface 

 the reaction is lost. Grallois has lately stated that he "found more 

 ozone over marshes than anywhere else." Dr. Schreiber, of Vienna, 

 asserts "that the turpentine exhaled from pine forests possesses, to a 

 greater degree than all other substances, the property of converting 

 the oxygen of the air into ozone." In this coimectiou, Dr. Denison 

 remarks: "If this be true, it will explain why a residence among the 

 balsamic odors of the pines has long been esteemed of benefit to the 

 pulmonary invalid." Florida is densely covered with pine forests, and 

 if we accept the statement of Dr. Schreiber, Dr. Jones is in error. Dr. 

 Moffat found the quantity of ozone in the atmosphere greater when the 

 mean daily temperature was above the mean. According to the re- 

 searches of Dr. Denison in Colorado, the excess of ozone appeared dur- 

 ing the spring months on the plains, and came proportionately later in 

 the season the higher up the observations were made. Says Dr. Ken- 

 worthy : 



Malaria is a subject which enters into the discussion of all southern climes, and we 

 unhesitatingly assert that Florida has been misrepresented in this respect. " It is the 

 custom," remarks Dr. Lente, p. 21, "of tnaiiy persons living at Florida resorts, off the 

 Saint John's River, to represent, for obvious reasons, that fever prevails there the year 

 round, and that it is dangerous to resort to it at any time. In this manner they have 

 excited senseless alarm in the minds of those proposing to come to Florida, and have 

 diverted them to other Southern resorts, thus in the end injuring themselves as well 

 as others." Unprincipled hotel keepers and runners, and the agents of steamboat and 

 railroad lines leading to other localities, aid more or less in this fraudulent attempt to 

 gain patronage. The bugbear, malaria, is, in my humble opinion, a prolific source of 

 disease among visitors to Florida. By misrepresentations (to use a mild term) tourists 

 and invalids have been led to believe that the entire water supply is productive of 

 disease, and as a consequence they refrain from drinking a sufficient quantity of water, 

 or dilute it with poor whisky or brandy to counteract its bad effects Interested par- 

 ties have expatiated so much with regard to the air being charged with malaria in 

 winter, that invalids and patients become alarmed, and as a sequence they daily swal- 

 low quinine, and thereby produce nervous or functional derangements. They keep 

 the pure air out of their rooms, breathe an air contaminated with their own breaths 

 and exhalations, and at night assemble in halls and parlors and inhale vitiated air 

 poisoned by their own breaths and the elements resulting from the combustion of coal- 

 gas and kerosene. They inhale for hours at a time air charged with carbonic acid, 

 and shun the pure night air as they would the emanations of the deadly Upas tree. 

 Visitors act imprudently, and as a consequence suffer from nervous derangements, 

 colds, and diarrhoeas, which they attribute to malaria or the climate. The cause of 

 slight indispositions affecting visitors is not malaria, but indulgence at table, change 

 of drinking water, eating excessive quantities of fruit, or the inhalation of air poisoned 

 by human breaths, or the resultants of the combustion of coal-gas and kerosene, and a 

 deficiency of the pure air that a beneficent Creator has placed everywhere within their 

 reach. If visitors would let quinine and arsenical pills alone, control their appetites, 

 eat moderately, inhale plenty of the salubrious air of the State, and not swelter in 

 heated halls, parlors, and un ventilated bed-rooms, we should hear less of the bugbear, 

 malaria. 



