Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-10
THE MARCH OF MALARIA.

The recent reports of commissions and
scientific bodies, like the Board of Health,
giving the results of careful and extended
investigations, notably the papers of DIR.
Chamberlain. of Hartford, and Dr.. Adams
of Pitts6eld, though marked by the habitual
caution in generalization and inference
which characterizes the scientific mind,
make it plain to common sense that the
fever, in its several special types, whether
dumb or shaking, whatever may be its
pathology, or nature, or origin, is due as
an existing evil here to decomposition or
exhalation and all the morbific and maletic
influences engendered about marshy or wet
regions and impure water beds. The best
authorities are not sure, or agreed, on the
question whether the disease is indigenous
or imported, Or on the question why it is
brought into activity at one time rather
than another. They generally concur in
the opinion, on both sides of the Atlantic,
that it terminates or sprouts in the human
body from very minute spores, measuring,
perhaps, 5000 to an inch. But how these
seeds are transported about, or what the
conditions of receptivity and susceptibility
are under which they are developed, no.
body can yet tell. There is evidence that
sporadic cases occur in dry, upland regions,
but the disorder loves marshes, clings to
artificial lakes or ponds, riots by the banks
of sunk streams and works it's burning and
shivering damage most Indignantly where
the normal mutual relations between soil,
vegetable matter and stagnant or moving
water have been unsettled. Mention is
made of some compact rural populations
near foul mill ponds, where half the inhab-
have baao doun AT npoe Spacn1a
ton as to causes, as might be expected,
has heen busy, What causes Of malaria
exist now which were nonresident, or in
allegiance, so long prior to this late day !?
Not only is science shy of hasty conclu-
sions, but property, too, has its self
preserving instincts, and the mill.owners
and manufacturers are not unwilling to
have a part, at least, of the curse rest on
other shoulders than their own. Wat
then are the new conditions Railroads
and tobacco culture are two. The rail.
ways are apt to open the surface on low
ground, and if there were enough of them
it might happen that an unwholesome gas
escaping would affect the workmen, as It is
said the upturning of acres of old sod on
building lots affects the health of the
people in the upper part of the island Of
ANCW VIM Dub SuCEc arc aibuS6tutT LOO
many railways where there are no chills,
and too many chills where there are no
railways, to allow much plausibility to this
same may be said of the tobacco fields.
The idea that the sickness comes of fertil-
izers used for tobacco raising has even
less support, for that nuisance is of but
very brief annual continuance, and is
for from being conterminous with the
malady. So tar as the great forces
of natnre .,o eoscerned, not much can be
done in the way of remedy. If, as there
is some reason to think, there is constant
shrinkage going on in rivers, fountains,
brooks and lakes, with diminished rain
fall, throughout this part of the country,
all we can do about that is to employ every
personal effort to remove or deodorize the
stench-breeding and fever.breeding matter
along the banks, and to increase our for.
ests by planting or protection, as many
thoughtful land. owners are now doing, and
as the late Forestry Convention in Mont
real leads US to hope may be done more
and more. There are thousands of citizens
who. with only moderate outlay, can
stanch, on their ewn premises at last, the
offensive sources of pain and death-f6f,
though net regarded as ordinarily fatal,
fever and ague sometimes takes longest
i've form, or otherwise overmasters the
vital power, in spite of the best treatment,
and the patient dies. Dwellers in bad
climates study the laws osAxanitary safety
and heed them. Out-of.door night air can,
to great extent, be avoided. Flies can
be built evening and morEing. The hu.
man system can be kept free, vigorous and
protected by right living temperance and
fannels. Some physioioeists think fine
wire gauzs at open windows may keep out
the spores. A line of thick trees with IN.
derbrush has been supposed to arrest them.
There is plenty of poof that good drainage
counteracts this As it does other kinds of
sickness Boston Herald.