FEVER. 
287 
day, with their jabbering, laughing, and the 
ceaseless occupation common to these untutored 
peoples — the destruction of parasites in the 
hair — distracted me while occupied in making 
an abstract of the contents of the letters re- 
ceived by last mail to send to H. The task of 
answering them rather burdens me now. My 
nerves have got into a strained state, and a fever 
attack is creeping over me. I had to succumb to 
it yesterday, and hope to master it to-day, but 
I fear it is not to be put off. 
Have you any distinct idea what this fever is 
of which I so often speak ? Before I suffered it 
myself, I used to account these malarial attacks a 
trifling matter ; and so they are, compared with 
the critical fevers, such as typhoid or gastric, 
which we dread at home. These assail with 
severity; but if they do not prove fatal, they 
leave the patient to recover, and probably to enjoy 
better health than before. But if one is suscep- 
tible to malarial influence, the fever is never 
done : it robs one of all vitality, it saps the life 
away, you can never count on a day’s immunity, 
you never know the hour when it will prostrate 
you. In some cases the patient passes from days 
of languor and malaise into the sleep of death, 
and in others succumbs to a sudden paroxysm. 
