556 



FARMERS' REGISTER— THE ROMAN MALARIA. 



you succeed in arousing in our beloved state, a just 

 estimate of agriculture, and in stimulating its far- 

 mers to improve their lands, is the wish of one of 

 your warmest admirers. ii. 



[The situation of the marl described by H. presents 

 but small obstruction to its vise. A good road with a 

 gentle ascent may be easily cut, (as directed in the Es- 

 say on Calcareous Manures,) and it will be then found 

 that a horse and cart will be better and cheaper means 

 to raise the manure, than either crane or capstain. 

 'When H. applies his marl (to suitable soils,) he will 

 also find that it is not only cotton, but that every crop 

 •will be benefitted, and in a high degree, within the first 

 year of the application.] 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Rc!:i-(er. 



Sir, — As I perceive you have published in j'our 

 number for October, Baron Varnhagen's notice of 

 Sir John Sinclair which I formerly transmitted ; 

 I now send you a paper recently received, in which 

 Sir John suggests some excellent ideas on the sub- 

 ject of malaria, which cannot fail to be interesting 

 to Eastern Virgnians. G. w, f. 



Washington, January 4, 1834. 



hints on the means of preventing the 

 mischievous effects of " the roman 

 malaria;" and on the improvement 

 of marshy histricts in general, with 

 a view to the prevention of the dis- 

 eases which they are apt to pro- 

 DUCE. 



By the Right I/nn. Sir John Sinclair, Bart. yJu- 

 ihor of the Codes of Health and j-JgricuUure/* 



The malaria seems to be an invisible and dilTu- 

 sible vapor, generated apparently under certain 

 circumstances of heat and moisture, in stagnant 

 waters, and in dan)p soils, particularly Avhen ac- 

 companied with rank vegetation. Diseases tlience 

 arise, which from the peculiar sconrge of hot cli- 

 mates, and of cold climates in the hot seasons of 

 the year.t 



It" is well known, that marshy districts are pe- 

 culiarly unhealthy. It appears indeed, from tables 

 drawn up by M. Maret, of several parishes in 

 Switzerland, in which a comparison is made be- 

 tween mountainous and marshy counties, that one- 

 half of all born in a mountainous district, live to 

 the age of 47 ; whereas, the same proportion, in a 

 marshy parish, live only to the age of 25. In the 

 liills, one in twenty of all tliat are born live to 80 ; 

 in the marshy parish, only one in fifty-two.J 



The miserable consequences resulting from 

 aguish complaints, prior to a country being drain- 

 ed and improved, have been ably depicted, in that 

 valuable repository of useful knov.ledge, " The 

 Statistical Account of Scotland." In some dis- 

 tricts in that country, a certain number of the 

 inhabitants are said amuially to have ildlen victims 

 to the ague. In others, the dis{emi)er was so fre- 



* It is not probable, that the most efteclual means of 

 mitigating the sources of these noxious disorders should 

 have occurred to any one, who had not directed his at- 

 tention both to agriculture and to medicine. 



t See a valuable paper on the Malaria. Edinburgh 

 Review, vol. xxxvi. p. 536. 



I In regard to marshy situations in general, Dr. Price 

 has written a short essay, containing proofs of their in- 

 salubrity, and confirming a paper by Pr. Priestley, on 

 the noxious effects of stagnant water. 



quent, that it was with difficulty the farmers could 

 carry on their work, more especially in sjjring, 

 when the aid of their laborers was most needed. 

 Hence, in some parishes liable to tliat grievous 

 malady, when any farmer wanted four laborers for 

 any j)iece of work, he generalTy hired six, know- 

 ing the probability that some of them would be 

 rendered unfit for labor, by an attack of the ague, 

 before the work could be finished. 



In the summer months, the malaria is peculiarly 

 destructive in Rome and its neighborhood. It 

 commences about the beginning of June, and does 

 not terminate till the severe autumnal rains in 

 September. It unfortunately encroaches, every 

 year, on some part of Rome, where it was formerly 

 unknown ; and there is a peculiarity in the lines in 

 which it advances, and in the mode of its progress, 

 which hitherto the inhabitants have not been able 

 to explain.* 



Being convinced that it is possible, chiefly by 

 agricultural improvements, in which so many im- 

 portant discoveries have recently been made, to 

 have this great source of human misery subdued, 

 I have been led, to submit the following hints to 

 the reader's consideration ; and in particular to 

 suggest a plan, by which th.e malaria would most 

 proi)ably be completely extirpated in the sRomaii 

 territory. 



The improvements I am led to suggest are the 

 following: — 1. Draining the land; — 2. Cultivating 

 it; — 3. Employing calcareous manures; — 4. Em- 

 banking land apt to be overflowed ; — 5. Procuring 

 wholesome water lor the drink of the inhabitants ; — • 

 6. Preventing the noxious air generated in thick 

 woods; and, 7. Warm clothing. 



1. Draining. — It appears from the unquestion- 

 able authority of the Statistical Account of Scot- 

 land, that wherever the land has been thoroughly 

 drained, intermitting fevers have disappeared. 



There are no less than thirty parishes in Scot- 

 land, to which this observation is applicable; but 

 in a condensed work like the present, it may be 

 sufficient to give the following instance from a 

 parish in the comity of Fife. Before the land in 

 that parish was drained, the families who lived near 

 a piece of stagnant water in it, were subject, both 

 in the spring and, in the end of autumn, to inter- 

 mitting fevers, of from 23 to 33 and sometimes to 

 39 days' continuance. Whole families were to be 

 seen at the same time, in such distress, that none 

 of them could assist the others, and depending on 

 the kind aid of their neighbors ihr the supply of 

 their necessities. But since the stagnant waters 

 have been completely drained, those diseases to 

 which the inhabitants were formerly liable, and the 

 sad train of complaints connected with them, have 

 happily been unknown. It is not easy, we are 

 told, to describe the pleasure of viewing luxuriant 

 crops, adorning the jdace where the eye had been 

 accustomed to see stagnant water, and where nox- 

 ious vapors, impregnated with disease and death, 

 were formerly so usual. f 



2. Cullivation. — But cultivation is the great 

 means, by which this miasm can be most effectu- 

 ally got rid of, and the salubrity of the air perma- 

 nently ameliorated. This important circumstance 

 can be accounted for on rational principles. 



+ Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxvi. p. 352. 

 f Statistical Account of Scotland. Parith of Lcuch- 

 ars, vol. 18, p. 5S6. 



