NATURE OF MALARIA. 825 



cial notice is, that in the course of a few days, nearly 

 the whole of this small remnant died from putrid 

 fever, resembling the worst forms of typhus. But 

 I have already stated, that typhus and other ma- 

 lignant forms of fever, have prevailed to a frightful 

 extent, in crowded ships, prisons, barracks, work- 

 houses, hospitals, and the confined dwellings of 

 the poor in large towns.* 



Should it be objected, that the fevers generated 

 in such places, may be owing to noxious effluvia 

 arising from the decomposition of various species 

 of filth, I answer that carbonic acid is the principal 

 result of all vegetable and animal decomposition, whe- 

 ther in open marshy districts, or in crowded and ill 

 ventilated dwellings. We are also informed by Dr. 

 Perceval, that a gentleman's servant in Liverpool, 

 after being exposed for some time to the fumes of 



* Dr. James Johnson also informs us, that two men were 

 suddenly attacked with rigors, faltering pulse, great debility, 

 nausea, oppression of the precordia, twitching of the muscles, a 

 muddy appearance of the eyes, dimness of sight, headache, and 

 low fever, succeeded by clammy sweats, hemorrhage from the 

 gums, petechise, a bubo in the right groin, and another in the 

 axilla of one man, who died on the fourth day, and the other on 

 the fifth day, after being exposed while in good health to the 

 putrid effluvia from the grave of a man who had been buried three 

 months, near the city of Canton, in China, and which they 

 unknowingly opened when digging a grave for one of their com- 

 rades. (Trop. Climates, p. 70, 6th ed.) It is therefore evident 

 that all the symptoms of plague and the most malignant typhus, 

 may be generated immediately by carbonic acid and other gaseous 

 animal effluvia, when sufficiently concentrated. 



