XXIV LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. 



Chiefly however in consequence of the great ability of a few of 

 the Juniors, and I again remark that Mr. Rolleston was the 

 representative man, we determined to retain the services of four 

 of them, viz. Messrs. Rolleston, Wilkinson, Eddows, Atkinson, 

 as a reserve of medical strength, and to meet contingencies. 

 This fortunately met with Lord Panmure's approval, and it was 

 to give them something to do, and to utilise the time, that the 

 plan was hit upon of calling for a Report on Smyrna in refer- 

 ence to the sanitary and other aspects of the place. They 

 received, I think, no particular instructions, but they collected 

 a great deal of useful and valuable information, which is em- 

 bodied in Mr. Rollestons Report, dated Nov. I, 1856. The 

 abrupt termination of the war consigned it, like many other 

 Reports, to the waste-paper basket.' 



The Report which thus came into existence is probably even 

 now the best guide-book to Smyrna which a traveller or mer- 

 chant could have. Among other matters, the writer's experience 

 enables him to write with authority on the malaria-fever, the 

 terror of Europeans in the East. Comparing the conditions of 

 Ephesus, where it is said that no European can sleep without 

 contracting a fever, of Mersina, the port of Tarsus, and of 

 Alexandretta, where the inhabitants sleep in wooden cages set 

 on poles 10 to 12 feet above the earth, he comes to the conclu- 

 sion that the one effective condition for generating malarious 

 fever is not abundant vegetation, is not marshy soil, nor any 

 one season of the year, but marshy ground in the process of 

 desiccation under the influence of solar heat. The one con- 

 dition common to all three places in question is marshy ground, 

 nearly or quite exhausted of its moisture by solar heat. As an 

 illustration he quotes a warning given him by a Consul at 

 Tripoli to avoid mulberries, because all experience shows that 

 they cause the pernicious fever. Now logically, this caution 

 was an instance of that commonest of fallacies, post hoc propter 

 hoc, but scientifically interpreted it contains a certain amount 

 of truth and should be thus read ; the sun has just got power 

 enough to ripen the mulberries ; the marshy ground will be now 



