Handbook of the science and practice of medicine / by William Aitken.

  • William Aitken
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of the science and practice of medicine / by William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    147/880 (page 29)
    •: from paludal diseases while the crops are growing, and only become iunliealthy after the harvest, when large quantities of vegetable mattei-s are left on the gi-ound at the time the rain begins to fall, j It may be said that, except rice, we neither reap nor sow in f marshes. Tliis is unquestionably true ; but it will be seen hereafter that marshes are in general healthy till the summer's sun, or other , cause, has diminished then- waters, and bared a greater or less portion of theii- bed. The part thus exposed almost always contains ; a lai-ge portion of vegetable matters, which, running into rapid decomposition, generates the poison which gives oi'igin to this class of , disease; and it is during the periods of the year when the drying i process is in greatest activity, that unhealthiness prevails with I greatest severity in the East Indies, namely, the commencement and termination of the rainy season. The pai-ticular evidence of vegetable decomposition being the som-ce of this poison is as follows :—Lancisi, for example, gives the history of an epidemic which for several summers infested, and I almost depopulated, the ancient town of Urbs Vetus, situated on an elevated and salubrious part of Etruria, and which was traced to the circumstance of the jieasants steeping their flax in some j stagnant water in the neighbourhood of the town. This practice ' was therefore prohibited in 1705, and the epidemic ceased to appear, i The apprehension of the steeping of flax being productive of paludal fever, is not limited to Italy, for the ancient as well as the new coutumes of almost all the pro^^nces of France have proscribed the steeping of flax, la rouissage, even in running waters, from the fear of infection. In the Netherlands also the same belief has pre- vailed ; for, in July, 1627, the King of Spain passed an ordinance, prohibiting the steeping of flax in the streams and canals of Flanders. The experience of the indigo-planter is to the same effect. In India, after the colouring matter has been extracted from the indigo plant, it was formerly the custom to throw the detritus into lai-ge heaps or masses in the immediate neighbourhood of the works, and which, at the end of three or four years, becomes manure of an excellent quality. It was found, however, that these heaps, Avetted from time to time l)y the heavy rains, and afterwards heated by the rays of a burning sun, i-apidly decomposed, and at length emitted miasmata, which produced all the effects of tliose extricated from the marsh ; for the woi-kmen who lived near, and more especially those to leeward of these masses, were found to be veiy commonly attacked by fever, chiefly of the remittent type, and similar to those which prevail in the ]ialu(lal districts of that country. This consequence is now so well, established that the most intelligent iudigo-plautcrs no longer allow these heaps to be formed either near the works, or in the immediate neighbourhood of the cottages of their workmen.