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
Catalogue details

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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    Tipon the effects of steeping flax; whicli lias led to so much' ooutroversy during successive ages. In the works of almost all writers after Avmenna, tk& steeping of flax is referred to, each no doubt taking his cue from that winter; upon whose works in fact, for a long peri- od, most medical treatises were mere commentaries. Lancisi quotes Avicenna as his great authority, foi the noxious influence of exhalations from decomposing vegetable matters, especially of flax and hemp; he also quotes Magnet- us to the effect, that in England the steeping of flax and hemp was forbidden under heavy penalties, in springs, ponds, or any public reservoir, or where cattle, sheep, &c. were watered.* Similar laws were in force, about the same period, in Hol- land and in France. The defilement of the water, by the rotting flax, appears however to have been as much dreaded, as the poisoning of the air by exhalations given off from it. It does not appear, that the belief in the noxious effects of decomposing vegetable matter, was even then universal, for Lancisi mentions a great controversy on the subject, and ad- mits that several physicians denied any such effects; he quotes especially P. Pereda, who said, that in many cities of Spain, near which hemp and flax were grown and prepared, the people enjoyed health and long life.* In answer to Gometius Pereira, Lancisi admits that the steeping of hemp and flax in running water, does not pro- duce bad effects ;* and he enters into a long* and by no means lucid explanation, as to why the exhalations should then be harmless, which in the case of stagnant water are so hurtful. The observation, that malaria may exist where marshes do not, gave rise to the modification of this theory, which ascribes malarious fevers to the decomposition of some organ- ic matter in the soil, developed by heat and moisture. The doctrine which attributes these diseases to the drink- ing of stagnant water, impregnated with decomposed veget- able matter, rests of course upon the same foundation as the * De Noxiis Palud, EJjluviis, Lib. i. p. 1. cap.' viii. 34.
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