The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-09-21
MaIarial Disorders.


| pi, Arkansas and Louisiana are due to
cool nights and warm days. Admitting
that alterations Of temperature, aud
not the direct poison of malaria, pro-
duce ague, there could be no exempted
locality in those low districts; and yet
malaria in those States is controlled by
| circumstances precisely as in Ohio,
New York or Massachusetts. The mi
asma will not go over hills and ravines.
twill creep over the valleys and up the
hillsides, but it never goes out into the
broken country. A heavy screen of
woods will bar its progress as effectual-
ly as in any northern latitude.
| was born near one 'Of the worst
we had no miasma, but one nights
visit down into the valley in epidemic
years would produce malarial disease
in three men out of five in the months
of August and September. Yet the
temperature of our nights was of course
the same as in the valley. There is no
escaping the conclusion that absolute
poison imbibed or inhaled during the
sOjOurn in the valley produced whatever
ague appeared among our citizens. No
miasma ever came into our hills, and
we were as effectually exempt from it
as the resident of an altitude of 500 feet
is from yellow fever, which can be con-
tracted by nights sOjourn in the val
ley, but which can not be impaired to
another by any kind of contact upon
return to an elevated region.
Since 1861 l have resided here
Washington, D. C.) and south of the
Potomac, and much of the time since
1867 in the extreme south and south
west, and l certainly can perceive no
difference in the exhibitions of mias-
matte poison in these places and in
Ohio. 1t is worse some years than
others. Some neighbOrhOods are Who'll
ly exempt, while others adjacent have
universal augue. All through Arkansas,
Mississippi, West Tennessee and Ala
bama, elevated sections give immunity,
and hills and woods will bar it out
quite as effectually. The paved streets
of Norfolk or New Orleans or Memphis,
where undistu-bed, will protect the res
ident who does not venture into the ad-
joining country. Use of proper
hygienic agencies will avert from the
individual. 1t will creep out over
valley and up cleared hill side and
affect whole community. But 1t will
not 90 into the broken country over the
bluff 1t everywhere may be found side
by side with the purest air and perfect
health. An hours walk will take one
from salubrity to miasm with all its
concomitants-from total exemption to
intensest affliction, and yet no one can
detect any thermOmetrical difference
in the night of the two places. | for
one can not accept B. F. J.'s hypothe-
sis, and must therefore demur to
his assumptions. Another strong
argument against his position
is the fact that in the Territories and
California, cool nights and hot days are
the rule, and, in the absence of miasm,
ague, ETC., are nearly unknown. have
often stripped to the buff in day time,
and always slept under blankets. /,
however, have had there but the expe-
rience of the summer of 1875. Ague,
| like yellow fever, seems governed by no
law of regularity. II Will, save in some
sporadic case, skip over one, two, three,
or even six years, and yet am sure no
one will put its temperance on the
ground of greater GOODNESS of nights
and heat of days. Ague is due to an
actual poison, one as positive in its na-
ture as that of cholera and yellow fever.
Gin the word ague | include chills asd
fever and all malarial diseases and their
etfects.) ...
He who goes into its home can meet
- Df hn in
form or other, fOr it exists without re-
gard to temperature. But 1t becomes
epidemic, in my opinion, on other
grounds than that of cool nights. In
this connection | may say that | regard
it's extreme intensity and prevalence in
the South as largely due to the exces-
sive use of pork and grease, whisky, bad
water and medicines. The northern
immigrant l found there, nearly to
man, have assigned these articles as the
cause of so much sickness and death in
their respective localities. ...
| was in Memphis from April to
August, 1873, not leaving until the
cholera had wholly disappeared and
yellow fever had carried Oft some of the
citizens, and am safe in saying hun
dreds died there that diSuse of these az
ticles would have saved. To my in=
uuiry, railroad boss said: 81 lost
thirteen men by cholera, all whisky
drinkers. OF the six temperance men
on my Job, only one was attacked, and
| he recovered. We could not save a
whisky-user." Plain food with perfect
cisterns will nearly protect any COM
munity from miasma in any form, be it
ague, cholera or other form of malarial
disease. / have condemned medicine
above, because my p years nearly con-
slant contact with malaria in all its
forms, has taught me that total absti-
nence is preferable; and at no time
when exposed, since 1858, whether as
| soldier or civilian, have l taken medi-
cine of any nature. Plain food, es
pecially for supper, cistern water in
the Mississippi Valley and South
ern Alabama, sunlight and night air in
bedrooms, and total abstinence from
alcoholic drinks, pork grease and med
icine, have so far proved perfect pro-
phYlactics. Such regimen has invarla-
| bly,, to me, proved more conducive to
health and perfect freedom from all
ellis that flesh is heir to" than the
careless dietary of northern salubriOus
latitudes; and in producing malaria
proof condition of body, certainly war
rants me in the belief that malarial dis
ease is much matter of volitiOn. In
this, | of course include cholera. My
observation in yellow fever has been
too limited for the formation of positive
Judgment, though have seen the great
protective power given by careful diet
and habits among my Northern friends
who have been in prlOnged contact
with it.
Iowa has been tickled nearly to death
to think that an ear OF Iowa corn has
been carried back to Brazil By Dom
Pedro, because the Empress, pretend
ing to be amazed and delighted with
the remarkable size and appearance OF
Iowa corn, begged an ear at one OF the
stations on the Burlington and Missouri
River Railway while passing through
the State. 1t has since transpired that
the Imperial party were learning the
American game of poker, and only