Proceedings of Eighth Annual Meeting 147 



to its prevalence in adjacent sections of the county. Even late this 

 fall it was prevalent there. 



'In Middlesex County the reports show: that it has prevailed 

 wherever there were local causes found to produce it. 



"The report of Mercer for 1872 says, we have a good deal of inter- 

 mittent and remittent, and those most familiar with the Delaware 

 River, will say of it, as of the Passaic, that it has much adjacent land 

 which needs reclamation. 



"Dr. Thornton, of Burlington County, says 'We are never rid of 

 periodic fevers, and at all seasons the "ague struck" are to be found, 

 both on the ridge-land and the fens.' 



"These counties are not singled out, but so far as our records 

 show, there is not a county in the state but that needs attention as to 

 certain malarial districts in it. A careful review of the records of 

 the last fifteen years shows an amount of evil upon us from this 

 source which surely calls for abatement, if it can be reached." 



In a later report of the State Board of Health, for the years 1881 

 to 1883, a very interesting account is given of a condition which 

 then existed in Bound Brook, I quote briefly as follows : 



"The people of Bound Brook and vicinity began to suffer from 

 the groups of symptoms generally classed under the head of malaria, 

 intermittent and remittent fevers and fearful neuralgia of different 

 regions of the body, and this continued, under the use of quinine 

 and the usual antiperiodic treatment and remedies, until, out of the 

 whole population of Bound Brook, there was but one person known 

 not to have suffered, and decidedly so, from malaria in some form. 

 Let it be remembered that Bound Brook shows itself to have been a 

 healthy place by its death-rate, and the remarkable longevity and 

 robustness of its old families. Yet, in spite of all care and persistent 

 treatment, it was impossible for the inhabitants to remain in the 

 town or vicinity and be well. The population is between 1,000 and 

 1,300. 



"Such being the condition of the health of the place, the citizens, 

 with the advice and assistance of the State Board of Health and 

 General Viele, of New York, presented the following indictment, 

 and the case came up for trial at Somerville, Somerset County, N. 

 J., during the September term of 1880, Mr. R. V. Lindaberry, Esq., 

 now of Elizabeth and John Shaw, Esq., of Finderne, having charge 

 of the case. 



"The case was thoroughly sifted, many of the prominent physi- 

 cians and sanitarians of the state being called to the stand, and the 



