Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-10-24
A LURKING DANGER.
How to Prevent Many Dysenteries and
Low Fevers.

A LURKING DANGER.
How to Prevent Many Dysenteries and
Low Fevers.
Every disease for which the physi-
clans can not satisfactorily account in
certain localities is explained by the
magical word malaria, and the patient
suffers and is weak till the develop
ment of fuller symptoms affords Oppor-
tunity for further diagnosis and a new
nomenclature. There seem TO be, how
ever, few diseases which the state of
the system, under the iafluence of ma
laria. can not counterfeit, and it is a
relief to many a sufferer to know, after
having been tormented by apprehen-
sion of something terrible, that it is
not heart failure, or brain trouble, or
cancerous stomach, or indurated liver,
but only a little malaria that Occa-
sions the suffering, quite unaware that
little malaria is capable of being as
baleful as any one of all the others, in
filtrating its slow poison, and prepar-
ing the way for its victims to fall easy
prey to thousand ills, all of which
might have been resisted but for the
vitiatiOn of the natural forces by this
subtle power of evil.
Not only in the positive and visible
agencies of fever and chills are the
effects of malaria apparent. but wher-
ever it is present sallow faces, impOv-
erished muscles. understood stature.
poor teeth, and thin hair, languor and
absence of ambition and energy, are
nOticeable; and if ever any great I'M
dertakings are comprised in malariOus
regions, it is by means of people COM
ing in from the outside and doing the
work before succumbing to the be-
numbing influence, or else by individ-
uals who are what gardeners call
sports" upon the prevailing variety.
What there is in a water-sOaked weed,
drying under hot sun, to evolve such
terrible injury to humanity is for
science yet to find out. But that there
is deadly power in all vegetation that
has been saturated and then exposed
to great heat is certain; and it is also
certain that sometimes the pestiferoUs
effiuence is felt the most by people on
low levels, at other times. under diff
ferent conditions, by those dwelling on
hills at a distance of some miles from
the malarial source, and that some
times a grove of trees or a town acts
as a filter or a screen, and prevents the
poison from penetrating further.
While what has been long known as
malaria, meaning merely fever and
ague. is confined chiefly to the low
latitudes and to fixed localities of al
luvial deposit elsewhere. yet there is a
notable development of malaria in all
places where vegetable growth under
goes exposure and decay, thus produc-
ing not only the common illnesses pro-
ceeding from malarious miasms, but
fatal fevers of many sorts. 1t becomes
every one, therefore, even in our own
comparatively safe regions, to take
two or three measures of precaution
that have been discovered to be of use.
Omitting, of course, purely medical
precautions, which are in the hands of
physicians to prescribe, the first of
these is a thorough system of drainage
wherever there are swamps or marsh
lands within three or four miles of
dwellings, that being the limit to
which the malarial poison can be car
ried by the wind, and the planting of
a thick growth OF trees to intervene
between houses and the danger, to act
as a shield and screen and absorbent
in places where the drainage is not
possible or the danger not to be re-
moved. Another is never to sleep on
the lower floor of rooms where there is
any suspicion of the existence of mala-
ria. Another is to use great caution
against the night air when not in mo-
ton. the poison being most active aft
er dark, when the sun has withdrawn
from us and from the world about US
his disease-repelling forces, caution
which forbids in mild autumn even
ings much sitting about the lawns or
lingering around the door-steps, and
which advises little wood fire upon the
hearth. Many dysenteries and slow
fevers might thus be prevented, which,
while they may not in themselves be
directly fatal, lead the way, through
weakness and lowering of the tone of
tt system, to diseases which know no
recovery.-Harper's Bazaar.