Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1883 — What Malaria Is. [ARTICLE]

What Malaria Is.

There are some questions which the scientific mind is continually grappling after, but whioh somehow it never reaches. One of these questions resembles the Irishmans flea, whioh, when you put your finger upon it, “isn’t there.’* , Such a question is, What causes Mhlaria ? The malarial mystery is one which has long troubled the scientific mind. The very best authorities are not agreed as to the question of its precise origin. Scientists on both sides of the Atlantic generally concur in the opinion that it germinates or sprouts in the human body from very minute spores, numbering "perhaps *B,OOO to an inch. But how these seeds are transported, or what the conditions of receptivity and susceptibility under which tney are developed, nobody 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 sunken streams, and works it burning and shivering damage most malignantly where the normal mutual relations between sCil, vegetable matter and stagnant or moving water have been unsettled. This disease is frequently engendered in newly broken prairie, with the grass turned under to decay,in damp places obscured from the sun by liigh weeds or thick shade, decaying vegetable matter, and in animal deposits, about yards, stable lots, fence corners, or the rich soil, probably manured annually on lawns. In some parts of the country malaria is making the most alarming enoroachments on the public health. A startling picture of its growth in portions of New England is given in a recent number of the Congregationalism in which Bishop Huntington says pf its manifest growth there: Natives of Western and Central Massachusetts, who have been sent out to do their work in less lovely regions, have been surprised, on coming back for rest during the last half-dozen years or more, to find their old neighbors shaking with fever and ague, and a general alarm creeping with the malady not only along the water course, but, to some extent, up the sides of the hills. The presence of the mischief is undeniable. Laboring-men, mechanics, shop-keepers, broom-makers, as well as farmers are disabled about half of their time. Hard-working women, needing every ounce of their strength and every hour of the week are prostrated. Children are interrupted at school, and become objects of anxious care at home. The household economy is sorely strained. Spirits are depressed. The “task of life" is fearfully aggravated. In some instances important branches of industry are embarrassed, enter-. prises are checked, business engagements are broken, temper and patience are tried. The moral atmosphere is disturbed with the physical. Of course, those families suffer most where the out-of-door exposure by day or night, is greatest, and where health is less firm. But even good constitutions are weakened, and the doors and windows of the body are thrown.open to all sorts of interlopers, marauders, and despoilers. * This is a startling picture of the ravages of this disease. Medical science should set its wits to work and throw more light on a subject which so sadly needs it. There are still many questions as to the ignorance of which model medical scientists can be arraigned with as bitter and caustic words as those in which Gail Hamilton showed its lack of knowledge a year ago. (Let the malarial mystery be solved. —Dee Moines Register.