The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1872-01-05
ChiIIs and Fever.

HdLCs Journal of Health, for No
vember says: 1t very generally prevails
in the fall of the year over large sec
tiOns OF country. Scattering cases are
liable to occur anywhere. These arise
from Individual indiscretiOns but
where large numbers of persons in
communities are attacked, there some
general cause must prevail. This
cause has been attributed for ages to
50 miasm," an emanation from the
earth so subtle in its character, that
for more than century the greatest
skill of the ablest chemists was not
able to detect its nature or define its
quality. A bottle of air taken from
the most deadly localities was sub.
mitted to the most careful and search
ing analysis without the detection of
anything solid, gaseous, or LIQUID
nothing could besfOund in the bottle
but air, thin air. But the MICROSCOPE
has come to the aid of the alembic.
and has discovered in this, the nlias-
matte air, multitudes of living things,
When bottles of this air were taken
from the banks of a Southern 6dDO,E
and placed in the chamber of man
in Chicago by DIR. Salisbury, he was
| taken with chills and fever in a few
days, and these living things were
| found on his tongue and in his mouth;
while not q single one was to be found
all over the city, except in that one
mans mouth, in his chamber, and in
/ the bottles. Whether this life is ami
| NAL or vegetable, the laws which reg
1 uiate the action OF miasm on the hu-
man system remain the same, and
the mode of production, or the causes
| of the generation of this miasm, re-
main unchanged; and these laws
have been determined and described
with wonderful accuracy. This mi
asm results from warmth, moisture,
and vegetation combined; if one is
absent, miasm is not formed vegeta-
bic matter will not decay unless there
| is moisture it will dry up; it WillRe-
| main under water q thousand yO8fs
| without decay, as witness the wooden
piles of ancient bridges, as sound to-
day as when they were driven by
Adams grandson. or somebody else
| who lived long time ago: The heat
| must act on the moisture before mi
asm becomes q product. This miasm,
to be injurious, must be taken into the
| system by breathing into the lungs, OF
by swallowing into the stomach. But
cold, as the "first frOsts" which are
everywhere known to make it innOc-
uOus, cOndenses this miasm makes il
so heavy that it falls to the surface OF
the earth, and can be neither breathed
nor swallowed; on the other hand,
heat so rarefies the air in which this
miasm il contained, that it carries it
| up towards the clouds, where it is no
more breathed than if it laid immedi-
| ately on the surface of the earth.
Hence heat and cold are antagonistiC
to the disease-prOducing effects Of mi
asm on the human body. To freeze it
| out is expensive, but to antagOniZei it by
heat is possible, is everywhere practi
| cable.
From an hour after shutdown to an
hour before sunrise, the cold causes il
to settle on the surface of the earth.
J An hour after sunrise and until an
hour before sunset, as a general rule,
it is too high above our head to injure
us, i'm consequence of the heat Of the
weather.
As the heat must he over eighty de-
grees for several days TO generate
miasm, il follows that the time during
which we are required to battle with
! it is at sunrise and at sunset during
| the spring and fall months. But to
make it safe from the first blade OF
| grass in spring until the frost in
| autumn, dress by a cheerful blazing
| fire, and take breakfast before going
| outside of the door; come home be-
! fore shutdown, take your supper before
! its setting, by the same cheerful
/ blazing hearth, then go and do what
| you please. You may sleep under a
| tree, or Oh a swinging limb, and defy
| fever and ague for a century, if you
| only keep warm, abundantly warm.