Public Parks. 39 



rampart has since been removed, and the country has become 

 proverbial for its unhealthiness.* 



Lancisi did not for a moment doubt the utiHty of these belts, and 

 expresses the opinion that the consecration by the Ancients of woods 

 and groves had no other motive than guarding, through their means, 

 against the diffusion of the febriferous poison. Among the Romans, 

 the advantage of such barriers had long been recognized. Trees 

 were planted in rows and masses to guard against the diffusion of 

 malaria. The practice was enforced by law, and recorded in the 

 Roman tablets. This law, which was reported by Cicero, — " Lucos 

 in agris habinto," — evidently had reference much more to the advan- 

 tage in question than for the purposes for which trees are usually 

 planted. In order to insure their safety, such collections of trees 

 were placed under the protection of some divinity, or under the 

 responsibility of the Roman Consuls. 



Bapt. Donus, in his work " On the means insuring Salubrity to 

 the Soil of the Roman States," recommends the planting of pine and 

 other trees between Rome and the Pontine Marshes, to intercept the 

 miasmata wafted from there by the south-west winds. At Velletri, 

 as also at Campo-Salino, the destruction of belts of woods was 

 followed by the prevalence of fever.f 



Dr. Lewis, in his Medical History of Alabama, says, "Mr. P. E. 

 had negro-quarters situated on the first prairie elevation above the 

 low lands of a small creek, the fourth of a mile from the houses. 

 The belt of low ground frequently overflowed, causing water to 

 remain in holes over its entire breadth, in the subsidence of the 

 stream ; but it was well shaded by a dense foliage, the plantation 

 lying on the prairie in the rear of the cabins. In the winter of 1843 

 and 1843 the trees between the houses and creek were cleared away, 

 and up to that time, some eight or ten years, the negroes living in 

 this quarter had enjoyed uninterrupted health — a case of fever scarcely 

 occurring. During the summer of 1843, the first after the forest had 

 been cleared away, fever prevailed among the negroes with great 

 violence, continuing until frost. The negro-quarters were afterwards 

 removed to the opposite side of the creek, about the same distance 

 from it, but with an intervening growth of timber, and no fever has 

 occurred on the place since." \ 



* La Roche, on Pneumonia and Malaria. 



t De Restitueuda Salubritate Agri Romani, 1667. 



% New Orleans Journal. 



