MALARIA.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2743, 7 January 1882, Page 2

MALARIA.

There ia so much ignorance tipon the subject of malaria that a few words are in order at a time when ' many people are subject to malarial influences. Malaria, which means simply bad air, is the common name of a class of diseases, which commonly arise from spores of decaying vegatable matter, either arising from stagnant pools or piles of vegetation undergoing decomposition. These spores when inhaled with the breath or taken into the system with water soon enter the blood and germinating there find a foothold, whence the whole system is poisoned by them and the various functions disordered. When the germ theory of disease was first exploited it was supposed that these spores were o£ animal nature, and like bacteria in diptheria, were propagated in the blood, but they are now conceived to be of vegetable origin, like the fungi found on decaying wood or in cellars. The source of this state, of the air is generally swamps or stagnant pools, which, partially dried by the hot sun, send forth vapour loaded with this malarial poison. These vapours de scend to the earth in the night cooled by the loss of temperature, and breathed by sleepers, are readily inhaled. Hence persons living near stagnant pools or marshes are liable to be afflicted with chills and fever, and such localities are never healthy, though they are more so when the streams flowing into them are pure, and also when the water is high. Again the drainage of houses, slaughter houses, barns, etc,, are a fertile source of malaria. As a general rule the drainage of tanneries in consequence of the lime used and the tannin in the water is not as objectionable as other drainage. Usually houses on bluffs or hills are but little subject to malaria, because they are above the poisonous vapours when they settle in the cooler air of night. One will often notice in coming into the neighborhood of one of those sluggish streams that pass though almost every village a villainous smell, caused by the offensive refuse

which communicates its bud odour to the atmosphere, especially on hot days. This absorbed into the system by the lungs or taken in through water, which also absorbs it from the air, poisons the blood and deranges the whole system. This poison is also developed in force in wells and springs when they become low, and the result of drinking these is the same as drinking in the poisonous air. In a time of drought the great quantity of vegetation that dries up in the meadows, stubble fields and pastures, the cornfields and forest leaves, produces the same effluvia. On the prairies, when large tracts of prairie ground are turned over, the decaying vegetation is a widespread cause of malaria. It will be noticed that whenever there is a long continued drought in the late summer and fall there is always an abundance of malaria. This is dry malaria, and is very common at such times.—American Journal.