Report on the climate and principle diseases of the African station; compiled from the documents in the office of the Director-General of the Medical Department, and from other sources: in compliance with the directions of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty / Under the immediate direction of Sir William Burnett. By Alexander Bryson.

  • Bryson, Alexander, 1802-1869.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the climate and principle diseases of the African station; compiled from the documents in the office of the Director-General of the Medical Department, and from other sources: in compliance with the directions of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty / Under the immediate direction of Sir William Burnett. By Alexander Bryson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    again when landed, from the surf suddenly becoming im- passable, it has seldom happened that liberty has been granted to the men to go on shore at any of the British settlements ; it becomes therefore more difficult to trace the effects of climate upon the naval force employed here. Sufficient inter- course, however, has taken place to warrant the conclusion that with few, if any exceptions, it is as inimical to the health of Europeans as any other part of the station within the tropics. The characters of all the prevailing febrile diseases are the same, although the physical condition of the soil is in many respects different. There are not any of those extensive swampy deltas, or sluggish streams with stagnant shallow creeks and mangrove covered shores, so peculiar to the upper part of the coast; and the rocks, instead of being of plutonic origin, like those which form the mountain ranges at Sierra Leone, are mostly of primitive formation, especially in the neighbourhood of Cape Coast and Annamaboe, where the ground in almost every direction is spangled with scales of mica. Marshes are by no means so numerous, nor are they of great extent, being generally confined to the bottom of small valleys or hollows, through which there is not any watercourse. The country is hdly, and with the exception of a few cleared spots around the native villages, is covered with that sort of thicket deno- minated jungle. On the other hand, around Accra, an exten- sive open prairie stretches for many miles inland, until it ter- minates at the base of a range of lofty hills trending parallel to the shore; there are but few large trees and no jungle, although there are many patches of scrub brushwood, and the whole plain seems covered with tall strong grass, which pre- sents a parched blighted appearance in the dry season, and a rank and vigorous vegetation in the wet. The few natives of England, Denmark, and Holland, who are resident here, or arrive from time to time, suffer generally from the endemic fever, before they have been long in the country; and sub- sequently, should they survive, from irregular paroxysms of