Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/249

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
IN INDIA.
229

of which the new cantonment of Namean, on the Irrawaddy, is a noted example, and has been abandoned in consequence of its unhealthiness, yet Namean seemed to possess all the advantages desirable in a cantonment. It is ascertained that all the types of intermittent fever may be occasioned by the same exposure to miasma; four persons may pass through a jungle at the same time: one may get a quotidien fever; one a tertian, and one a quartan, and one may escape; and the one may be attacked an hour or two after the exposure;another a day or two; another a week or two, the seeds of fever lying dormant in the constitution.

12. MARSHES.—These are the principal sources of miasma or malaria, and hence the name of marsh—fever;and hence the propriety of draining marshy ground, and the impropriety of excess of irrigation, converting good soil into a nursery for fever. That Calcutta is so much more healthy now than it was in the olden time, when the survivors held a jubilee when the sickly season was over, is chiefly owing to the drainage of its marshes and jeels, and learing away jungle;and that cultivated lands may be depopulated even by marine inundation, was manifested in the awful mortality from fever that followed the irruption of the sea into the districts of Balasore, and the