226 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October t, 1888. 
and sanitation are all treated more or less exhaus- 
tively and free from technicalities. The author's 
address to planters should be in the hands of every 
planter in India. Doctor Bishop says : — 
A planter's life ia one of continued risk and 
exposure, only those who have lived and worked 
amongst them can realize the risks they run. 
Year by year the already heavy list is steadily 
increased by those who pass over to join the great 
majority, victims of the climate. Young men who 
arrive from home strong and healthy, full of life 
and vigour, succumb to that deadly curse, malaria. 
Often situated away from European medical advice, 
sufficient attention is not paid to the health of the 
planter ; he probably goes on getting slight attacks 
of fever which he treats as best he can, finally 
drifting into a debilitated state of health, and 
is carried off by the first sharp attack of malaria ; 
his system not rallying sufficiently to throw off 
the poison. Planters, as a rule, are a happy- 
go-lucky sort, and pay little attention to attacks 
of malaria. With the great responsibility of 
large concerns on their hands they have no time 
to lay up, often going to their daily work with 
fever, trusting to a few doses of quinine to pull them 
through ; so it goes on until the liver and spleen 
become affected and the constitution ruined. More 
attention should be directed to this, and every 
planter ought to be overhauled occasionally. He 
may not be ill, but at the same time some advice 
is useful, and an experienced eye can detect a 
flaw when least expected — it may be only a trivial 
ailment, but still require seeing to. Planters are 
somewhat careless about their health, being so 
wrapped up in the interests of their gardens that 
if medical advice is not handy, they seek it when 
too late, and irretrievable mischief is done. It is 
useless to expect a planter to ride miles and miles 
in a blazing sun to obtain a medical opinion. It 
must be at hand. A monthly visit from the doctor 
is little enough, a friendly chat sometimes dis- 
closing symptoms which otherwise would never 
have been noticed. To those proprietors in- 
terested in tea properties, I would most 
earnestly impress on them the necessity of 
seeing that their managers and assistants have 
furlough in due season ; many a valuable life has 
been sacrificed for want of a timely trip to sea. 
The planter, sooner than risk a refusal, will go on 
working till he drops, and the change comes too 
late. A trip to England every five years is absolutely 
requisite for those engaged in the plains and mala- 
rious districts, and in many cases oftener. Longer 
ssubjection to malarious influence means the con- 
stitutions becoming so inbued with malaria that 
sooner or later it tells on the frame, and it is no 
easy work to repair the mischief done, numbers only 
going when dire necessity compells them, arriving 
home in such a state that their health never re- 
covers sufficiently to allow them to return to their 
duties. A change being only beneficial when taken 
at an early stage. In my opinion, if change of air 
were ordered more frequently, less lives would be lost. 
Planters whose lot is cast in the Terai, the Dooars, 
parts of Assam, Cachar and Sylhet, all more or 
less suffer from malaria from time to time varying 
in severity. Perhaps, mostly in the Terai. The 
earth of this district is immensely rich and covered 
with dense forests, which being shut in by the 
vast mountain ranges, make free perflation of air 
impossible. This, at particular seasons of the 
year, causes it to be very unhealthy. Even those 
who live above the plains at a higher elevation 
are not always safe from the baneful poison, for 
malaria has been known to attack residents who 
thought themselves so elevated as to be out of harm's 
way. The malaria has been carried along by winds 
sufficiently strong enough to do so, yet not to dis- 
pel it. Currents of heated air will cause it to ascend 
far above its origin. Bungalows built above a 
malarious plain are often more under its influence 
than those below. Malaria, if helped by gorges and 
hot air currents, has been known to invade mountains 
at various heights. It is not wise to place bungalows 
on the edges of ravines supposed to be above fever 
level. .A good belt of forest intervening between a 
malarious swamp and abungalow is agreat protection. 
Water acts in a similar way by its absorbing powers. 
As long as the earth is protected from the sun by 
forest, it is not so bad ; however, after clearing the 
forest, and before the land is brought into cultiva- 
tion, is the time when the malaria seems at its 
worst. 
I do not think planters exercise sufficient dis- 
cretion in their living, and to this I wish to draw 
attention ; likewise to the pernicious habit of taking 
stimulants between meals ; not that this is done to 
excess. Still planters do get into the habit ; 
returning from the morning's work tired and 
exhausted a peg is taken ; most probably he 
will find this freshens him up. So without 
knowing or thinking about any harm that might 
result from this, he gets into the way of having 
intermediate nips between meals. These are bad, 
very bad. Habershon, in his excellent work, 
says, ' From the free use even of wine and malt 
liquor we often find a state of subacute inflamma- 
tion of the stomach produced. Congestion of the 
liver and enlargement follows/ This state gives 
plaoe to chronic dyspepsia, very frequently to 
the vomiting of blood and to a disordered state 
of the whole abdominal viscera. Organic degenera- 
tion of the liver and kidneys often succeeds, or 
chronic ulcer of the stomach with its attendant 
miseries ; an atheromatous condition of the 
arteries is another Consequence of alcholic imbi- 
bition, and this again becomes the cause of 
valvular disease of the heart, and may endanger 
life from apoplectic effusions into the brain. 
Alcohol may be a most valuable medicine, but 
the abuse of it entails innumerable miseries, and 
that which may be of temporary benefit becomes 
direct injury when unnecessarily continued ; the 
temporary requirements of disease and of a failing 
circulation are never meant to be the guide of 
normal health ; and if large doses of stimulant be 
continued, organic disease will almost invariably 
follow.' A planter's life is necessarily a very hard 
one, and it is of the uttermost importance that 
he should keep himself in good health to be able 
to go through his arduous duties, and to avoid 
the risk of malarious poisoning : with this aim he 
must live well and have regularity in his meals. 
A sufficiently substantial meal is not always taken 
in the morning, to carry on till breakfast, usually 
at midday. The result being that nature becomes 
exhausted long before breakfast, and a peg is in- 
dulged in sometimes to help along, without a 
biscuit or anything to eat at the same time, which 
materially decreases the harm. In my opinion, 
planters, from the robust life they lead, and living 
often in a malarious climate, are none the worse 
for some stimulant, providing it is taken at the 
right time with meals. What I wish to point out 
is the irreparable mischief done to the great 
organs cf the body, viz., the heart, the liver, 
stomach and kidneys by the habit of nipping 
between meals. The mischief comes on insidiously, 
one of the most frequent outcomings of this habit 
being chronic catarrh of the stomach, resulting in 
an accumulation of phlegm in the throat on rising, 
efforts to dislodge which cause vomiting. This is 
simply an inflamed condition of the coats of the 
stomach, due in some eases to cold, but more 
