What is malaria? : and why is it most intense in hot climates? : an enquiry into the nature and cause of the so-called marsh poison, with remarks on the principles to be observed for the preservation of health in tropical climates and malarious districts / by C.F. Oldham.

  • Charles Frederick Oldham
Date:
1871
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: What is malaria? : and why is it most intense in hot climates? : an enquiry into the nature and cause of the so-called marsh poison, with remarks on the principles to be observed for the preservation of health in tropical climates and malarious districts / by C.F. Oldham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    mometer in contact with, the ledges of bare rock, that the- “laxas negras’^ are hotter during the day, than the reddish white granites at a distance from the river; but the latter cool, during the night, less ra]3idly than the former/’ This writer continues : ^^It may be easily conceived, that the emis- sion and loss of caloric is more rapid in masses with black crusts, than in those which abound in laminm of silvery mica,* * * § In the City of Angostura, situated on the Orinoco, at the foot of a hill of hornblende schist, bare of vegetation, Hum- boldt found the same dread of exhalations from the rocks,, when acted upon by intense heat;t and here, the cause of the evil was uudoubtedly the same as at Carichana. The malignant influence of the rocky hills of Southern India during the hot season, attributed by Dr, Heyne to magnetic causes, and the emanations supposed to arise from the granite of Hong Kong, and of other places, in the tropics, are, without doubt, of the same nature as those above alluded to; and the noxious properties of the rocks are owing to nothing more, than the intense heat accumulated by day, (reaching, as Dr, Heyne tells us, to 220° P,,) succeed- ed by a chill, and generally damp atmosphere at night. In all climates the evil influence existing in malarious- places, from whatever source this is supposed to arise, is- known to be counteracted by fire; and the protection of this powerful agent has been invoked, in such situations, from the- earliest ages. As Lancisi observes,:}: the myth of the destruc- tion of the Lernean Hydra- by Hercules, which could only be accomplished by the aid of fire, points to this, Hippocrates is said, by means of fire and smoke, to have arrested the pestilence at Athens; and Acron is said to have done the same at Agrigentum, by turning a cold and damp atmosphere, into a warm and dry one,§ Pliny alludes to the use of fire for the same purpose. * Narrative of Travel, xx, 247, t Ibid. XXV, 619, X Be Noxiis Pallid. Effluviis, Lib, i. v, 79. § Paulas /Egincta. i, 273, Sydonham Ed.