The diseases of tropical climates and their treatment : with hints for the preservation of health in the tropics / by J.A.B. Horton.

  • Horton, James Africanus Beale, 1835-1883.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diseases of tropical climates and their treatment : with hints for the preservation of health in the tropics / by J.A.B. Horton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    exposing a body to an exceedingly bigb temperatui’e, we produce sucb incipient changes in the ultimate structure of the body that no decomposition can take place. Beyond 56° of north latitude Ague is seldom traceable; a continuous temperature beyond 60° of Fahrenheit’s scale is necessary for its production; so that^ as we approach the equator, its evolution is more abundant, virulent, and ]3ernicious. Hence aguish diseases are much more severe in the tropical than in the temperate climates, and in the latter climates much more severe in autumn than at any other period; because, in hot climates and in hot seasons, there is far more vegetable matter to decompose; and as an increase of heat produces a great increase of decomposition, we may logically infer, that in a warm temperature fever is much to be attributed to the facihty with which decomposition takes place. The lagoons of India, China, Japan, Africa, and other tropical countries, may be safely regarded as the source of the most deadly malarious emanations. I experi- mented on myself, when stationed in the unhealthy region of Quittah, on the bank of the extensive lagoon in the Guinea Coast of Western Africa; and the result was that, at a certain period, the lagoon is not only a generator of malaria, but that it exists in it in a very concentrated form. Stagnant water, through the decomposition and putre- faction of the organic matter which it contains, produces Ague. Therefore, any quantity of water, however small, lying stagnant, containing decayed vegetable and animal matter, is sufficient, more or less, to cause Intermittent Fever. Many places, which have only a small pond or a