58 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



result? The wife and children were stricken down with 

 fever, one of the latter died, and almost another. Then 

 they went back to their healthy home with shattered 

 health, one and all, and soon the poor wife followed her 

 child, thankful to be at rest, yet sorrowful too for those 

 who remained behind. And all this did not come of igno- 

 rance of the probable results either, but was just a delib- 

 erate * ' tempting of Providence " to save a few dollars. 

 But when the accounts were footed up, to the two lives lost 

 were added also many dollars lost as well. There is a 

 moral to this story, and '' He who runs may read," and if 

 he is wise, " He who reads will run " from low places every 

 where. 



Florida is like every other country on the face of the 

 earth ; there are spots totally unsuited to human habita- 

 tion, others moderately good, others desirable, and still 

 others yet more desirable. 



And yet during the dry winter months even the most 

 malarial of these localities become almost healthy, because 

 the excess of moisture and the poisonous gases from decay- 

 ing vegetation are taken uj) far above the earth by the 

 absorbent power of the atmosphere and wafted far away 

 by the constant breezes. But during the warm, rainy 

 months the decay is too rapid and the moisture too great 

 to permit this beneficial factor to do its work so effectually, 

 although even then it is still powerful enough as a general 

 rule to rob the fever fiend of much of its deadly strength. 



What says the report of the United States Army Sur- 

 geon-General : ' ' The statistics of this bureau show that the 

 diseases which result from malaria are of a much milder 

 type in Florida than in any other State in the Union, and 

 the number of deaths there to the number of cases of re- 

 mittent fever has been much less than among the troops 

 serving in other portions of the United States." 



